Discoveries from Peru World Cinema

Jeffrey, a young guitarist, has to compose a song for a company. However, the task becomes confusing and frustrating.

A film that addresses issues of citizen violence and vigilante justice

The knot of the tie enters into the complexity of Alejandro, a mixture of thoughts out loud and an excessive performance reveal his acting work and his diagnosis.

An ecological documentary about the more than 200 lagoons in the highlands of Cajamarca.

Sara and Omar, newlyweds, move to Ayacucho for work. She's a painter and he teaches at a night school, so he often gets home very late. A spirit that inhabits the house will make Sara's life miserable while she's alone, trying to possess her and take control of her life.

A single man, an accountant by profession, deeply embedded in the city's workforce, seeks, through obsession with his work, to build a future that meets his and his family's expectations. However, when he hires Rosa as a domestic worker, he finds an obstacle to maintaining his work discipline.

Mercedes Huamanchumo is a fisherman descended from the Moche culture. Mercedes and her sons Lucio and Junior go out to fish every day in the traditional reed boat known as a "Caballito de Totora." Their challenges go beyond the waves and the cold; they are committed to preserving the ancestral fishing technique.

Five underground bands from Lima rent a bus and embark on a DIY punk tour to Chiclayo and Trujillo, cities in northern Peru. This documentary, featuring live sound recordings and real footage, captures the energy and attitude of their music.

This documentary shows the daily lives of alpaca herders in Chimboya and describes the alpaca fiber marketing system, from the factory in Arequipa through intermediaries to the producers. Large companies advance money to traders or middlemen, who in turn provide advances in cash or food to the producers, to be repaid in wool. To supplement their diet, the farmers make long journeys to the lower valleys to exchange the products they produce on the high plateau, such as wool, textiles, and meat, for agricultural products like corn, barley, and wheat grown by the communities in the lower valleys.

TAXI DAKAR is a fable in which an African man, Matar Thiam Fall, whose name means "death," decides to embark on a journey. He travels from town to town across a Spain ravaged by the economic crisis, carrying an old suitcase containing a handful of books he has written and self-published: the first Wolof-Spanish dictionary and the first Spanish-Wolof and Catalan-Wolof conversation guides.

It records ten years of personal encounters with Daniel F, promoter of the Lima underground movement in the mid-1980s.

Babalú, by Sofía Velázquez and Carlos Sánchez, portrays the daily life of an elderly, full-time gas delivery man. At night, he picks up an old book, settles into his comfortable armchair, and plays the trumpet as he did when he conducted the orchestra that gives the short film its name. It captures the sadness of witnessing an artist's decline, dictated by necessity. The song he plays on the trumpet seems to weep, like the languid images that make up the video.

An English and Quechua teacher goes abroad. Through a letter addressed to the colleague with whom he will be working for a while, he reflects on his identity and on the country.

Reconstruction of memory through music, memories and the lack of both.

A journey through the principal expression of Peruvian popular music: the huayno with harp. For harpist Laura Pacheco, collector Alfredo Villar, and composer Rubén Cavellos, music is the path of travel, memory, and dreams. And it is also a way to get to know Peru.

Short film that satirizes the electoral campaign of the then president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, for his third consecutive government.

A boy who is leaving his parents' house decides to leave them with a good memory before he goes.

Traveling through the breathtaking landscape of the Purús River, located in the far north of the Ucayali department, we find 45 communities from 13 different ethnic groups living along its banks in close and daily connection with the river and with nature. Guided by Alfredo del Águila, a 45-year-old Sharanahua indigenous man and leader of the Santa Margarita community, we journey through his stories, anecdotes, and encounters with other people, such as the Shipibo and Yine park rangers at the border checkpoint on the Tahuamanu River, who are responsible for protecting one of the territorial reserves where uncontacted people live freely.

Collage of images from various news programs of the time and YouTube videos from the two terms (1985-1990 and 2006-2011) of the former president of Peru, Alan García, in transition with his famous and ridiculous dances.

Four young men form a rock band and invite a girl to join, but she is raped and murdered after a drug and alcohol-fueled binge. A year later, however, her revenge is unleashed.

A French-Peruvian documentary that revisits, half a century later, the characters, premises and creators of the classic film "Chronicle of a Summer" (1960), by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin.

Film by Marcelino Huamán Gutiérrez.

Film by Oclides Mamanchura

It reflects the agonizing moments experienced by the people of Tacna during the Battle of Campo de la Alianza and the entry of the Chilean army into our city, how Chilean laws prevented Peruvians from displaying any national symbol, but despite this, July 28, the day of national independence, was secretly celebrated in Tacna homes.

Apash means "outsiders" in the Jivaro language. This indomitable people, who have inhabited the Amazon for some 1,200 years, have clashed with outsiders many times throughout their history, yet so far, they have neither been annihilated nor subdued. Apash is the name of the documentary's director and Antonio Abreu, a veteran and eccentric Spanish adventurer who travels along the Marañón River in the Jivaro region of the Peruvian Amazon. Through dialogue and mutual understanding, they attempt to create a documentary that will help the indigenous communities in their struggle for survival. This is a crucial moment as these communities grapple with industrial privatization and the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest.

A teen horror film, made in Chota, Cajamarca.

Rubén (Deyvis Rivera) lives in Cerro de Pasco, a mining town known for its intense cold. His mother takes care of him and his two brothers, and he helps out by selling candy in the town square. His father works in the mines, but he has a problem: he's addicted to alcohol, which leads him to beat his mother after getting drunk (kicking her and whipping her with a belt). Rubén isn't spared his father's abuse; he also receives beatings, and being the eldest son, he gets a fair number of blows.

In a radical journey to find rhythmic synchronicities between the Peruvian landscape and a free musical form, Lima native Manongo Mujica directs this film, in which he also plays percussion, exploring a conceptual path guided by a quote from Jorge Luis Borges, who suggests that a self-portrait can be constructed from an accumulation of disparate elements. With his drum kit on the shore, where the boundaries between water and land blur, Mujica plays accompanied by a kind of violinist-monk; all framed by an omnipresent and vibrant geography that ultimately intertwines with the performances to create a true soundscape.

Film by Roberto Villantoy.

Film by Eliú Espinoza.

The secret history of "noise," from its origins in the 1980s to the present day. It brings together the testimonies of more than twenty underground rock and electronic music artists, a true expression of a city as noisy as Lima.

Tourist report on the department of Ica.

Hat making done by the Sayritupac family in Chucuito, Puno.

Documentary about the life of the illustrious Peruvian Ramón Castilla (1797-1867).

Work of community member Honorato Malca in the government-promoted program for preschool children called "Wawa wasi" in the various peasant communities of Puno.

Life and work of the Creole bard Felipe Pinglo Alva (1899-1936).

Short film.

The documentary offers a glimpse into the city of Lima, exploring its traditional urban spaces such as the Torre Tagle Palace, the Casa de Oidor, the Alameda de los Descalzos, the Paseo de las Aguas, as well as the traditions represented by the street vendor selling tamales, melons, watermelons, humitas, picarones, and anticucheras.

From the series Ancient Cultures of Peru.

From the series Ancient Cultures of Peru.

The first inhabitants of the human settlement of Villa El Salvador.

Documentary about the first class of Peruvian female paratroopers.

Large-scale projects are carried out through organized community work and technical and financial support from the government. El Milagro, a young community in the Independencia district of Lima, is an example to follow.

The Chalpón Cross festival is celebrated annually in August in the district of Motupe

A manifesto that reflects on what an alien attack on Earth would be like.

A young woman, who lives locked up and only watches television, is unaware of a revolution that is taking place in the streets.

A short film by Rafael Arevalo.

A girl suffering from sleep paralysis and night hallucinations will try to rid herself of her mysterious curse.

A girl's life changes after being struck by lightning.

A young actress wakes up after a night of partying with no memory of what happened. Her best friend has disappeared, but everyone tells her otherwise. As she tries to find an explanation, she begins to feel watched wherever she goes.

The story of a DJ who, despite obvious hardship, strives to help women with all kinds of problems through an internet radio program.

The debut film of a young and eccentric filmmaker, Piero Ventura, becomes the worst feature film of all time, as everyone who sees it detests it. After accepting a bet, he allows his best friend to film him for a month to make a documentary about his attempt to find someone who likes his film, hoping to redeem himself.

Rafael Arévalo's film.

A quena flute whose melody mesmerizes all who hear it; a tumi drum that inspires one to seek independence and another to sacrifice oneself; a quero drum that allows one to hallucinate anything, for better or for worse; an ekeko figurine that grants all kinds of wishes, but at exorbitant prices; four objects of indescribable value and a collector who desires them all. Five stories about manipulation and the deepest desires of humankind.

An experimental documentary, somewhere between psychosocial and anthropological, that portrays, in a respectful yet farcical way, the complex psyche of a lucid and eccentric poet, who generates rejection among the more 'normal' people... He believes that theories such as that of soulmates and that of a conspiracy plotted against him are highly probable, if not certain.

Ethnographic documentary.

Romantic film, tells the story of schoolboy Raúl who secretly loves his classmate María.

A documentary about Peruvian free surfer Jonathan Gubbins, during his usual annual trip to Indonesia, chasing his dreams at sea.

Pizarro, the conqueror of South America. Atahualpa, the last of the Inca rulers. The legacy of the encounter between these two worlds is being traced in Peru by new Pizarros with video cameras and many unanswered questions.