Paulina Urrutia and Infinite Memory: “It’s the opportunity to have been loved and to have loved Augusto until the last moment of his life”

They met in 1997 , when he was executive producer of the cultural field of TVN and she was already a well-known performer of theater and soap operas. After sharing a few dates, they pair up, mature as such, and start a life together.

infinite memoryfilmmaker Maite Alberdi’s documentary on Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia, tackles the first chapters of this relationship, integrating images captured at that time by the journalist himself with his camera and remained stored at his home.

“It was typical of Auguste: he recorded everything. The construction of the second floor of the house was fundamental for us. We did the second floor and moved in together, in 99. It (in the file) shows where the window will be. I love seeing him, because he’s ‘very him,'” the actress says of the material the director of eleven o’clock (2014) dusted off and included in his latest feature, which arrives in Chilean theaters this Thursday the 24th.

Urrutia speaks of “magic” to refer to the artistic work of Alberdi, a direction that is maintained in the register of the present of marriage as they deal with the Alzheimer’s disease of the communicator -who died last May-, and in using images from the past to describe their intimate world as a couple and Góngora’s commitment to the historical memory of the country.

“It’s a very honest film, in the sense that it hides nothing from the disease. But at the same time, there is a treatment that has to do with the talent of Maite, the respect and the affection that we receive from her”, says the actress.

Alberdi, who had filmed people with Alzheimer’s disease in the short film I’m not from here (2016) and in the mole agent (2020), he found a love story without comparison. “It always happens that on the set there are moments when we break up, but in reality I had a good time with them. It was never painful for me to be there,” he said.

The director keeps with particular affection some images of married couples having fun on the beach when they were younger. “When I crossed the archives of the past with those of the present and saw that they looked exactly the same 25 years ago as they do today, I couldn’t pull myself together. It’s my favorite,” he said.

Originally, in 2018, four years after receiving the medical diagnosis, Urrutia didn’t agree with the idea of ​​making a documentary . He only accepted the request because Góngora was very enthusiastic about the proposal from the filmmaker, who wanted to explore their love story of more than two decades through a feature film.

The interpreter tells that around her there were people with different opinions. “The only conclusion I’ve come to is that it shouldn’t be done. However, Augusto said: yes, let’s go. Why not? What’s the problem?” he said.

In 2020, with the arrival of the pandemic, the shooting of the film could not continue as planned. In this period of confinement and other sanitary measures, Urrutia has agreed to record with a camera that Alberdi left at home, so that he becomes a new eye behind the tape.

According to the director, “there was no staging. we weren’t making a movie , we told each other about life through the images he sent me. It was a diary, it was a correspondence”, he assures. “I think the particularity of this film is that the only deadline it had was our urgency for the recording, without rushing it .”

Today, Urrutia takes it with humor that the recordings he recorded are blurry. “I have never examined this material. I pressed play and recorded hours and hours,” he says. “But that’s where this relationship started,” he says, pointing to the director. La Maite became a witness to what we experienced during this period: two years of total isolation, alone. And I think that helped me a lot.”

“It’s a movie about memory based on what we remember . Not of what is forgotten. If we go to file teleanalysis it’s because he remembers”, explains the filmmaker, who considers that Góngora “gave me signs”. A way of showing that his initial objective – the love story – ended up extending beyond beyond what he suspected.

The documentary debuted successfully at the international festivals of Sundance and Berlin. The actress accompanied the director to the German competition last February. “When I came back from Berlin, it was very hard. Augusto was already very deteriorated at that time, he was already very ill. It was hard to come home. »

Then, in July, Urrutia faced the film under different circumstances, at an event in New York which she attended without Alberdi, busy with other commitments. “At Lincoln Center, something very beautiful happened. This is what happens to me when I see her now: Augusto is so present, he is so alive. It’s like I could touch it ”.

“And it’s not just about seeing him so present, but having his speech. A speech consistent with his life. It’s amazing. And, at the same time, the opportunity to have been loved and to have been able to love this man until the last moment of his life. To have been able to count on him and that he could have counted on me”.