Sign up here to receive our free, monthly Featured Titles newsletter
Click here to remove yourself from our mailing list if you're already a subscriber.
Editor's Note:
This month the Latin American Video Archives features the work of independent directors from Peru. We would particularily like to highlight the work of Casablanca, a cooperative of independent filmmakers started in the 1970s that continues to produce and distribute Peruvian independent work. To order any of these tapes, contact us by email at info@lavavideo.org, by phone 212-243-4804, or by fax 212-243-2007. Our website at www.latinamericanvideo.org unites the collections of all US distributors that handle Latin American titles, making it easy to locate the titles you are looking for.
|
Documentaries from Casablanca
|
|
Golden Bridge, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Jorge Carmona Del Solar
Documentary 25 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
Travelling through the Andes, we come across the revered Apurimac ("God who speaks") River, which divides the land in two as it descends from the snowcapped mountains. Following its flow, we come across man's attempt to overcome the river's might and close the gap for the well-being and development of various indigenous communities: the Qeshwachaka bridge, a jem of the pre-Inca era that today still faithfully unites the left and right banks of the river. The film explores this little-known ancestral tradition that lives on in Peru.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Salt of the Andes, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Pedro Neira
Documentary 52 minutes 1998
With English subtitles
This documentary explores the importance of salt in the Andean region. Traveling from the Pacific coast to the world's largest salt treatment plant in Bolivia, the film captures the culture and history of one of Latin America's poorest regions.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Tale of Death Get Details and Purchasing Info
Danny Gavidia
feature 95 minutes 1993
With English subtitles
Two journalists, a woman and her cameraman, are involved in a violent riot in a Lima jail. The horror they live turns into a media circus. Live television feeds let the prisoners experience themselves as protagonists and heroes. After a series of conflicts, the journalists begin to understand the power of the medium in which they participate: mass media used this way can feed the violence.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
We Are All Stars Get Details and Purchasing Info
Luis Felipe Degregori
feature 86 minutes 1993
With English subtitles
A charming film about television, fantasy and social reality in modern-day Peru. Everyone in the Huambachano family has his or her own private concerns, but all have one thing in common: an obsession with winning the million-dollar prize offered by a popular TV game show, "We Are All Stars," which features a randomly-chosen family in each episode. One lucky day it seems their dream is about to be realized, as the host of the TV show knocks on their door. But they soon realize they aren't the "ideal" family, according to the standards of Peruvian television.
Purchase Price: $ 89.95
Go, Run, Fly Get Details and Purchasing Info
Augusto Tamayo
feature 95 minutes 1994
With English subtitles
Two street children who once struggled to survive are now 19 and 21 years old. They belong to a generation of young people who have to fight and find their way in the middle of a deep crisis with a civil war going on between the army and the Shining Path. They have very limited possibilities to get education or work.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Gregorio Get Details and Purchasing Info
F. Espinosa, S.Kaspar and A.Legaspi
Feature 59 minutes 1984
With English subtitles
Using non-professional actors, this film traces the devastating descent of a young peasant boy into Lima's vast community of street children. Unable to make a living in the countryside, Gregorio's father, Jacinto, moves his family to Lima. Soon after they arrive he loses his new job. The family is forced to live in a squatters' camp two hours from Lima, where Jacinto falls ill and dies. Gradually, young Gregorio learns the life of the streets and joins a gang of petty thieves. Throughout the film, Gregorio narrates his experiences, expressing sorrow but no particular conviction that anything could change.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Juliana Get Details and Purchasing Info
Fernando Espinoza
drama 90 minutes 1988
With English subtitles
Juliana lives with her mother and step-father in the slums of Lima. Her brother ran away but from time to time they run into each other. He works for old Don Pedro with other boys who sing for tourists. Juliana wants to join him since her step-father makes life unbearable with his beatings. So she cuts her hair and dresses as a boy and goes to see Don Pedro.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
|
Other Peruvian Independent Features
|
|
Courage Get Details and Purchasing Info
Alberto Durant
Feature 110 minutes 1998
With English subtitles
An inspiring story of bravery, sacrifice, and hope, Courage is based on the true story of María Elena Moyano, the Afroperuvian political activist who fought against poverty and malnutrition and ultimately paid with her life. Moyano was the leader of a women’s organization in the city of Villa El Salvador, a squatter community carved out of the desert surrounding Lima by poor urban pioneers. Founded and entirely run by poor mothers from the community like Moyano herself, the organization fought for human rights by addressing the most fundamental concerns, organizing community kitchens and clinics, income-generating projects, adult education centers, and milk distribution for the children of Villa.But the women’s struggle for human dignity was hampered by poverty, machismo, and the neglect of government bureaucrats. The outspoken and charismatic Moyano soon attracted the unwelcome attention of Peru’s Marxist insurgents, the Shining Path, who were threatened by her democratic vision and her feminism. After refusing to be intimidated by house-bombings, death threats, and slanderous rumors spread to undermine the community’s trust, Moyano publicly denounced their violence. When her family and friends finally convinced her to leave the country for her safety, she returned after only 10 days, deciding that she could not live in comfort while her community was crying out for justice. She returned to her family, her community, and her political struggle, rallying the community from the paralysis of fear and suspicion. At a fund raiser, which she attended despite persistent intimidation, the 33-year-old Moyano was brutally murdered in front of her sons, her body sadistically destroyed by dynamite.Using authentic slang and realistic settings in gritty lower class neighborhoods, Courage provides a very humanistic portrait of this complex woman, who defied the guerrillas’ threats, the government’s intractability, and her own community’s self-doubt to bring a vision of social justice and self-empowerment to the working-class women of Latin America.
Purchase Price: $ 150.00
You Only Live Once Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marianne Eyde
feature 84 minutes 1992
With English subtitles
Acted by indigenous people from the region, this film portrays a village in the Peruvian Andes that is caught between the tyrannies of the guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Peruvian military. The film opens as an indigenous community festival is interrupted by the arrival of three members of Sendero, posing as university students. They attempt to organize the community, and in the process, one member falls in love with a local woman. After they leave the town, the military arrives and warns the community not to associate with terrorists. Deciding they do not want to side with either the military or the guerrillas, the town soon finds itself subjected to violent attacks by both.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Other Featured Titles
