Cielo is a cinematic reverie on the crazy beauty of the night sky, as experienced in the Atacama Desert, Chile, one of the best places on our planet to explore and contemplate its splendor. Director Alison McAlpine’s sublime nonfiction film drifts between science and spirituality, the arid land, desert shores, and lush galaxies, expanding the limits of our earthling imaginations. Planet Hunters in the Atacama’s astronomical observatories and the desert dwellers who work the land and sea share their evocative visions of the stars and planets, their mythic stories and existential queries with remarkable openness and a contagious sense of wonder. A love poem for the night sky, Cielo transports us to a space, quiet and calm, within which we can ponder the infinite and unknown.

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“A cinematic rumination on the majesty of everything that surrounds us.” – Nick Schager, Esquire

“Exquisite. The images in the film are unmatched by any Hollywood blockbuster.” – Jordan Hoffman, Village Voice

“A star-laden travel movie like no other. No planetarium could hope to replicate the awe-inspiring spectacle that is Alison McAlpine’s Cielo.” – Graham Fuller, The Culture Trip

“Numerous images of transcendent beauty. … Seen on a big screen, these images…have a transporting power that comes close to approximating what it must be like to actually stand in Atacama, gazing up in awe. Even the Milky Way itself rotates through the heavens with breathtaking clarity.” – Keith Uhlich, The Hollywood Reporter