The Pearl Button

Oct 15, 2015

1h 22m

★ 6.9

Overview

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

France 3 Cinéma

Ciné+

Mediapro

Atacama Productions

Valdivia Film

Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes

CNC

RTS

France Télévisions

WDR

The Pearl Button Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Patricio Guzmán

Self

Martín G. Calderón

Self

Gabriela Paterito

Self

Gabriel Salazar

Self

Claudio Mercado

Self

Raúl Zurita

Self

Cristina Calderón

Self

Adil Brkovic

Self

Javier Rebolledo

Self

Juan Molina

Self (uncredited)

Emma Malig

Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.

6.8

Reunion

Jan 2, 1946

Live footage from concentration camps after the liberation, and the complex transport and lodging of masses of prisoners of war and other deported people back to their home countries, at the end of World War II. A 45min 35mm print also exists (shown at Cinémathèque française in 2023).

0.0

This Was the Time

Jan 1, 1970

When Masset, a Haida village in Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), held a potlatch, it seemed as if the past grandeur of the people had returned. This is a colourful recreation of Indigenous life that faded more than two generations ago when the great totems were toppled by the missionaries and the costly potlatch was forbidden by law. The film shows how one village lived again the old glory, with singing, dancing, feasting, and the raising of a towering totem as a lasting reminder of what once was.

7.5

Nazi Death Camp: The Great Escape

May 12, 2014

The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.

7.7

Two Crowns

Oct 13, 2017

Recreation of facts and stories of both experts and people who met Maximilian Kolbe and were shocked by his words and actions.

0.0

Heartbeat of a Nation

Sep 25, 2022

A short documentary that celebrates Dene cultural reclamation and revitalization, in which a father passes on traditional knowledge to his child through the teachings of a caribou drum.

0.0

Nose and Tina

Jan 1, 1980

Nose and Tina are a couple in love. The film captures the domestic details of their life together and documents their hassles with work, money and the law. The unusual bit: He is employed as a brakeman, and she as a sex worker.

6.0

Yanuni

Jun 14, 2025

Indigenous chief Juma Xipaia fights to protect tribal lands despite assassination attempts. Her struggle intensifies after learning she's pregnant, while her husband, Special Forces ranger Hugo Loss, stands by her side.

0.0

Septembre Chilien

Jan 1, 1973

Bruno Muel's documentary on the coup in Chile in 1973. Muel, who was part of the famed Medvedkine group, along with Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard, among others, captured one of the most powerful portraits of the early days of Dictatorship. Profound solidarity with the socialist cause, Muel and his team showed great courage to mix the official registration of images with those triumphant, clandestine, of the nascent opposition.

No Image Available

0.0

Aufenthaltserlaubnis

Jan 1, 1978

It follows Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta as he celebrates the end of the autocrats. Cheerful farewell rituals accompany others facing political persecution on their way to fly home.

0.0

Who Will Burry The Dead?

May 14, 2016

This documentary offers a deep, candid, and historical look at the Christian experience of America's largest and best-known tribes: the Dakota and Lakota. Its exploration into Native American history also takes a hard and detailed look at President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy of 1873, which was, in effect, a "convert to Episcopalianism or starve" edict put forth by the American government in direct violation of its Constitution. The devastation it had on the values of the people affected were dramatic and extremely long-lasting. Grant's policy was finally ended over 100 years later by the Freedom of American Indian Religions Act in 1978. Interlaced with extraordinarily candid interviews, this documentary presents an insider's perspective of how the Dakota and Lakota were estranged from their religious beliefs and their long-standing traditions.

0.0

Namatjira Project

Sep 5, 2017

From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.

0.0

Ningwasum

Feb 11, 2022

Ningwasum follows two time travellers Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction.

0.0

Natsik Hunting

Jan 1, 1975

Mosha Michael made an assured directorial debut with this seven-minute short, a relaxed, narration-free depiction of an Inuk seal hunt. Having participated in a 1974 Super 8 workshop in Frobisher Bay, Michael shot and edited the film himself. His voice can be heard on the appealing guitar-based soundtrack…. Natsik Hunting is believed to be Canada’s first Inuk-directed film. – NFB

0.0

Eagle Boy

Aug 5, 2018

A fearless horse bonds two men to each other and to the traditions that define their community.

0.0

Cartoneras

Nov 29, 2018

Cartoneras is a documentary that grapples with Latin America’s urban realities, and the cardboard publishing movement that has emerged from these in the 21st century. Reflecting on the different contexts that propelled this form of community publishing, like Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the independent art scene, and the movements which formed around waste-pickers, the film’s narrative is developed through conversations with important actors from the cartonera world.