SANTIAGO, Chile, March 2 — As a journalist, Augusto Gongora fought to chronicle Chile’s violent military dictatorship. But it was his battle to hold onto his own memories that made him the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary.

The Eternal Memory charts the progression of Alzheimer’s disease through the lens of a couple who had to work every day to keep alive the memory of their love, just as their country strives not to forget its own violent past.

“The film became a metaphor for the loss of memory of an entire country, told through what was happening to Gongora,” its Chilean director Maite Alberdi told AFP.