Fidocs 2026 V.1

We say goodbye with great sadness to Patricio Guzmán, founder and first director of the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival.

“Perhaps this modest event will serve as support for our own filmmakers (who mostly work alone, without much financial assistance and with few universal references). Perhaps it will stimulate documentary filmmaking among new students in film schools. It may draw the attention of our television programmers to other types of works that they are undoubtedly unaware of today.”".

We chose these words that Patricio Guzmán wrote when he inaugurated FIDOCS in 1997 and that translate the spirit of this Festival which, on the verge of celebrating 3 decades of history, will honor his name and legacy.

In a setting still marked by the silences of the dictatorship, the creation of a festival dedicated to documentary film was a way to open a space for memory, discussion and critical thinking.

His work was an enormous gift to world cinema. A body of work that expanded the boundaries of documentary filmmaking and, for so many generations of filmmakers, formed a true school of vision. A filmmaker who awakened the memory of a country, in a country that has often tried to erase it.

FIDOCS Team