Sundance Winner ‘The Eternal Memory,’ Story Of Alzheimer’s And A Couple’s Bonds Of Love, Makes Berlin Film Festival Debut
deadline.comDoctor Zhivago, Casablanca, Amour. Over the decades, cinema has produced some fictional love stories of enduring beauty and resonance.
But for sheer emotional force, even those classics may not rival the true love story told in The Eternal Memory. Maite Alberdi’s documentary, which made its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, centers on the remarkable bond between a Chilean couple, the esteemed writer and journalist Augusto Góngora and his wife — an actress, academic, and Chile’s former Minister of Culture, Paulina Urrutia Fernández.
They spent many joyous years together before Augusto was diagnosed, in 2014, with Alzheimer’s. The film begins with a scene shot in the couple’s bedroom in the middle of the night, after Augusto apparently has awoken.
Smiling, he introduces himself to his wife. “I’m Augusto Góngora,” he says. “And who are you?” Patiently, lovingly, she replies her name is Pauli.
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