The Eternal Memory

The Eternal Memory (La memoria infinita, 2023) is a Chilean documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Journalist Augusto Góngora and actress Paulina Urrutia spent twenty-five years together; now they're learning to live with the Alzheimer's that erases a little more of his memory every day.

The camera rarely leaves their home. Each morning Paulina reintroduces her husband to his own life — his friends, his travels, his name. During the Pinochet years Góngora was the man who kept a record of a country's pain so no one could forget it; the cruel irony is that forgetting has now come for him. Between the lost moments come flashes when he knows exactly who she is, and those seconds outweigh any plot.

Maite Alberdi didn't film a case study of an illness but a love story held up by one person while the other slips away. The film earned an Academy Award nomination and took the top documentary prize at Sundance. Hard to watch, yet luminous — about memory both private and national. Stream The Eternal Memory online on iFILM.