Best movies like Letters from Santiago

A congressional candidate questions his sanity after seeing the love of his life, presumed dead, suddenly emerge.

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.

Born into one of the wealthiest and best-known families in American history, Gloria Vanderbilt has lived in the public eye for more than 90 years, unapologetically pursuing love, family and career, while experiencing extreme tragedy and tremendous success side by side. This documentary features a series of candid conversations as Vanderbilt and her youngest son, Anderson Cooper, look back at her remarkable life.

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

War photographer W. Eugene Smith travels back to Japan where he documents the devastating effect of mercury poisoning in coastal communities.

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

When famed photographer Christina Eames dies unexpectedly, she leaves her estranged daughter, Mae, hurt, angry and full of questions. When Mae finds a photograph tucked away in a safe-deposit box, she soon finds herself delving into her mother's early life -- an investigation that leads to an unexpected romance with a rising journalist.

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity - despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family's explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different. At age of 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair.

A former German Army officer, accompanied by his granddaughter, journeys to the Ukraine to find the woman he once loved.

Gabby Denton, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck drifter, seems to get a chance at redemption when his brother-in-law helps get him a job as a mechanic. Not realizing the garage he works for is actually a front for a stolen car ring, Gabby soon finds himself mixed up in both murder and a liaison with the boss's girl.

5000 years ago, in India, men started to capture and tame elephants for war, parades and worship. Still today, the young Makbul grows up in daily contact with the wild and domesticated elephants that live in the forest around his native village in southern India. Over the objections of his mother, Makbul follows in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, going deep into the forest to learn the age-old profession of the mahout, or elephant handler in the government's employ. When an elephant calf named Vikrama is born, the animal is placed under Makbul's care.

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

After 20 years of exile, Aron returns to Chile to find out who he is. He asks questions, not only of those who stayed behind but also of himself, examining his relationship with his past and his own memory. The people who stayed lived through 20 years of dictatorship. They were either victims or executioners. Amidst this wreckage, Aron wonders what name his brother is using now, where his father is... Can he, in Isol's arms and through her love, find his way again ? What future awaits him? Like Mola the torturer, he has returned from an impossible journey, and Aron knows that each man is his own executioner. Shipwreck and resurrection are the two facets of a complex truth.

Karen Bender is a plastic surgery expert who will soon be promoted to Senior Physician. Her family life with her husband Christoph and little daughter Kim could hardly be more harmonious. However, when a routine check-up reveals that the seven-year-old is a lethal tumor, Karen is unexpectedly caught up in her past: Professor Victor Novak, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon, is the only one who can save Kim's life. But years ago Karen had an affair with Viktor during a joint engagement in the Balkan war.

East Germany, in autumn 1999. Gudrun Pfaff is about to turn sixty when she finds out that the orphanage she grew up in is being sold to turn into a hotel, and she is willing to do anything to stop it.

Isidora, an old woman, discovers that her mind is quickly deteriorating. At an apparently relaxed dinner table, she will desperately try to hide her state from her daughter, a demanding woman who awaits any sign of senility in order to take way everything she has.

A priest challenges the members of his congregation to not just go to church every Sunday, but to actually follow in Jesus's footsteps in their daily lives. From Charles M. Sheldon's book that launched the saying "What would Jesus Do?

Three women who share a familial bond but little more come to know each other better in this beautifully-photographed drama. Marie-Madeleine (Sylvie Drapeau) is a photographer in her mid-30s who, for the first time, has come into contact with Mado (France Arbour), her biological mother, who put her up for adoption shortly after she was born. Marie-Madeleine is to take a long road trip for a magazine assignment, and she invites Mado along. Joining the two women is Marie-Madeleine's daughter (Isadora Galwey), who has yet to meet her German father. The three women share their thoughts and ideas as they travel through an idyllic setting to photograph birds. Les Fantomes des Trois Madeleine was shown at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors Fortnight series.

Ariane Ostler manages a dairy farm in the mountains of Bavaria.Her former lover Georg visits her to live again a new love.Bernhard Maywald is a income tax inspector send to Reichertsbrunn.

The relationship between journalist Nina and her mother Eva has always been tense. One day Nina is supposed to be interviewing Richard Gere in Budapest. Her friend Flora and her mother Eva accompany her there. Flora succeeds in defusing the tensions between mother and daughter. Then Eva is suddenly admitted to the hospital. Nina's visit to her mother's sickbed is moving for both women.

María, a girl from Colonia Dignidad, in Chile —a kind of sectarian community, tyrannically mastered by the ruthless Paul Schäfer, a German madman, religious fanatic and child predator, who would end up turning the place into a torture center at the service of the military dictatorship ruled by Augusto Pinochet—, is punished for having lost three pigs, so she decides to run away and take refuge in an abandoned house hidden in the forest.

After Lucy (17) finds out that she was conceived during a porn shoot she sets out to find her father and meets Udo, a has-been former porn star. Together this unlikely couple go on a journey during which both find more than they bargained for…

Katharina Wallner is the owner of a long-established business for film videos. After the will of her disinherited landlord Heinz Ortner she should now close the lovingly run shop. So far, she was able to withstand Ortner's harassment, but the dreamy old lady is annoyed at the end. Her sister Hannah, surprisingly returning from South America, encourages Katharina to do something about the homeowner. When Ortner lies dead in the stairwell the next morning, Katharina comes over a terrible suspicion.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

When Vanessa receives the results from her Family Tree DNA test, she discovers a family she didn't know existed and travels to their home for Christmas.

An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.

Happily married to Thomas, her daughter just off to college, Katja teaches math and music at the local elementary school. Her life seems perfect. Until a chance encounter turns her world upside down. The very weekend her family is away, she meets Daniel, an attractive, inquisitive fellow, backpacking through Germany. A travel journalist, just passing through, he camps out on her lawn. They connect. She finds his independent, freewheeling lifestyle fascinating. He tells her of his journeys. He makes her feel alive, reawakens her youthful hopes and dreams. Now old regrets come rushing back. After three exciting days, she is faced with the decision: does she go with him, or does she stay in her own, safe little world?

Tutor Jeronimo and heiress Josephe fall in love but are quickly torn from one another by execution and jail. However, when fate intervenes in the form of a massive earthquake, the two lovers have no idea what is in store for them.

It's been a year since Moritz Wagner and his daughter Aluna turned their backs on Kenya and moved to Hamburg. They searched in vain for Farrah, Moritz's wife and Aluna's mother. Moritz's strenuous, sometimes traumatic job as a war photographer had put a lot of strain on their marriage. Farrah took some time off and disappeared without a trace. Now news reaches Moritz from the Kenyan police that his wife has been recovered dead from her car in Kenya. Shortly after, Farrah's sister Pascale suggests that Farrah was not the victim of an accident, but was murdered. Moritz sets off for Kenya. But when he wants to meet his sister-in-law, she dies in front of him. Moritz is now considered a suspect and has to justify himself to the Kenyan police and flee. Together with Caroline, a shirt-sleeved used car saleswoman and good friend of Farrah, Moritz sets out to find the secret behind Farrah's death. The trail leads them both to the Congo.

A portrait of a brutal Pinochet military dictatorship made during a three month visit to Chile in 1985 by David Bradbury. The footage reveals a country torn with civil strife and political unrest; military intimidation of the population; indiscriminate arrests: murder torture and disappearances were facts of Chilean life.