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Wednesday 7.3.2001
A Massive Dose of Peruvian Film
Peruvian movies are rarities in Finland. Last year, Francisco J. Lombardi's urban story of a family, Don't Tell Anyone (1998), was the first full-length film to appear on movie theater playlists. This year, almost 30 Peruvian films will be shown in four screenings at the Tampere Film Festival.
Three million alpacas exist in Peru today (Film: Alpaca breeders of Chimboya)
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There will be special screenings of Peruvian short films on Wednesday and Saturday, the Salvini screening on Thursday, and the documentaries on Sunday. In previous years five shorts have been shown in the international competition and one full-length film has been shown in the special programme.
Silent Zorro, Peruvian-style
Movies came to Peru in the 1800s, with the first films being made in 1913. Since then, Peru has produced over 200 feature films and about 2 500 short films. Compared to many other South American countries, that isn't a whole lot. Peru's film production has been affected by the unstable conditions in which filmmakers have had to work.
Production didn't really kick off until the 1930s. In addition to documentaries and reportages, though, the 1920s gave birth to some ambitious movies. The first truly popular film was the silent Luis Pardo (1927), a picaresque story in the spirit of Zorro.
On Wednesday Alberto Durant's El Famoso Bandolero will be shown, in which the director speaks about his work. This documentary also has clips from Luis Pardo, which is no longer available in its entirety.
Pedro Sambarino was a pioneer of Italian film who made a name for himself working in several South American countries. At the festival we will see two excerpts from Sambarino's long documentary Inca Cuzco, filmed in 1920s Peru. These are Las Tipicas Fiestas de Copacabana and Inca Cuzco, for which Peruvian folk music was recorded in New York in 1934.
The golden age of short film
The 1972 Peruvian film act gave economic support to short films, which had great significance on their development. Many of today's directors learned their trade working on shorts. Thanks to the law, 1 500 short films were produced in some 20 years.
Short films had to be shown in theaters before the evening's feature film. Support ended in 1991. In its place was created an organization to support national filmmaking (CONACINE) which distributed funds to short films as well. This aid was cut in 1998.
Funding for films is a tough political question for Peru in these post-Fujimori times. Short film production has shrunk, but new filmmakers appear all the time. Young filmmakers have set up an independent production company, Llactaymanta Nawiyn, whose first production, last year's Q'eshwachaka – el puente dorado (golden bridges) will be taking part in the festival's international competition.
Jorge Carmona del Solar's documentary depicts the time-honored, ritual-like legacy that predates the Incas. Every year four village communities rebuild the Q'eswachaka hanging bridge over the Apurimac River. The golden bridge is like an old friend. When the old bridge is dismantled, tears are shed. The documentary will be shown on Sunday.
Walking on water
Most of the Peruvian short films are fictional, there are some short documentaries, but hardly any animations. The festival brings together some twenty short films from the past year in two screenings.
Gianfranco Annichini's 1987 Una Novia en Nueva York (a bride in New York), treading the ground between documentary and fiction, will be in Saturday's second short film screening. A product of the twenty-year golden age of Peruvian shorts, this film has recieved much acclaim. In it, the 78 year-old Liman, Rogelio Razur, writes to a New York marriage service. He's looking for a millionairess bride to fund his invention – water skiis which let you "walk on water as if you were Jesus Christ".
Annichini, a celebrated cinematographer and editor, has two other films which will be shown in the short film screenings on Wednesday: Hombre Solo and Radio Belen.
Grupo Chaski (in the Incan Quecha language, chaski is a messenger) was a filmmakers group that created socially aware documentaries in the 1980s. The ten-minute documentary Sobreviviente de Oficio (working to live), which will be shown on Wednesday, is an example of the group's work. The 1987 film tells the story of a kid who makes a living washing windshields on the street – cleverly, creatively, wholeheartedly, and even with a little hope, although you cannot help but sense the hopelessness.
Short on longer documentaries
Documentaries over 30 minutes in length aren't too common in Peru these days, except perhaps in reportages. It's not for a lack of subject matter, though. The influence of Sendero Luminosa, the Shining Path, on Peruvian society has so far only been visible in a few fictive works.
Marita Barea's 1998 Hijas de la Violencia (daughters of war) is one of the few documentaries which deals with guerilla movements, and will be screened as part of Sunday's documentaries. It tells the story of Gabriela, a young woman who has grown up in the shadow of terrorism, one of thousands of Peruvian orphans whose parents were executed by the Shining Path. The 17 year old Gabriela, who has a five month old daughter, is the leader of a gang of girls known as the Cat Women.
Also showing on Sunday, Alpaqueros de Chimboya (Alpaca Breeders of Chimboya) deals with an important source of income in the highlands. There are three million alpaca in Peru, and 85% of the wool they produce goes into the textile industry and exports.
The Norwegian-born director Marianne Eyden's 1982-1983 film looks at the village community of Chimboya, 3 700 meters up in the Andes, who trade wool, meat, and handicrafts in exchange for grain and other agricultural produce brought from the lowlands.
Aldo Salvini, expressionism and grotesque humor
Gianfranco Annichini and Aldo Salvini's works have placed Peru on the map with respect to short films. Salvini is one of Peru's most talented and best known directors. He has recieved several international awards, including an honorary mention from the Tampere festival's jury in 1993.
Salvini's are highly individual films peppered with grotesque humor and expressionism. The marginal worlds he treads are inhabited by the exceptional and the displaced. Six of his short films will be shown in Thursday's Salvini screening.
La Misma Carne y Misma Sangre (Same Flesh and Blood), from 1992, is a fictional film in which Siamese twins Hansel and Gretel escape from prison. One is murderous, the other peace-loving but forced into crime by the murderous twin.
The 1997 Los Milagros Inutiles de Demeyrat (The Useless Miracles of Demeyrat) is the most recent Salvini film shown at the festival. In this 28 minute short we meet Ebaristo, a broken man who has lost his family in a fire. He holds God responsible. But Demeyrat, the genii he finds in an old lamp, suffers from memory loss and so cannot fulfill Ebaristo's wish to meet God.
Screenings on Peru:
Focus on Peru 1 (K2), Short Films I. March 7th, Tullikamari's Pakkahuone 7 p. m.
Focus on Peru 2 (T13), Aldo Salvini. March 8th, Tampere Hall, the Studio, 5 p. m.
Focus on Peru 3 (L19), Short Films II. March 10th, Tampere Hall, the Studio, 7 p. m.
Focus on Peru 4 (S12), Documentary Film. March 11th, Tampere Hall, the Studio, 5 p. m.
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