The Atacama desert sky is so clear that scientists can see out into the universe. It is also a place where the heat preserves human remains. As astronomers gather in search of alien life, so do a group of women, digging for their relatives who disappeared under Chile’s dictatorship.

History, geology, and astrology collide in this masterful documentary from Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán. A cosmically-charged rumination on a nation’s recent and ancient past, Nostalgia for the Light takes to the barren plains of the Atacama Desert for a profoundly moving poetic odyssey.