Patricio Guzmán, a Chilean documentarian renowned for his two trilogies about his home country, died on Sept. 15 in Paris at 85. His daughter, Andrea Guzmán Urzúa, announced the death on social media. He had lived in Paris for over three decades.

After studying filmmaking in Madrid, Guzmán returned to Chile in 1971, soon after Salvador Allende's Marxist government took power. His first film, "The First Year" (1972), caught the attention of French filmmaker Chris Marker, who helped screen it in Europe.

Following the 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Guzmán filmed the events. He was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks at the National Stadium in Santiago. A friend smuggled his reels to the Swedish Embassy, which sent them out in a diplomatic pouch. Guzmán fled to Cuba, where he edited "The Battle of Chile," a three-part masterpiece: "The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie" (1975), "The Coup d'État" (1976) and "Popular Power" (1979).

The trilogy was praised by critics like Pauline Kael, who wrote in The New Yorker that it "needs to be seen on public television."