After its international premiere at Amsterdam’s Documentary Film Festival, the Peruvian documentary “Lucanamarca” was premiered in Peru’s capital, Lima, kicking off a nationwide tour.
The 70-minute film tells the story of the 1983 massacre of 69 residents of the remote village of Lucanamarca, who were brutally murdered by axe, knife and machete-carrying members of the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla. The bloodbath was an act of retaliation for the murder of Olegario Curitomay, one of the Shining Path’s leaders.
“Three out of every four victims were quechua-speaking campesinos: a large sector of the population, historically ignored, and even despised, by the State and urban society. This documentary is an attempt to seize and comprehend part of our country’s past and present, and may this plea to remember serve as a spell to assure that certain things won’t happen again. We haven’t tried to make a story about heroes and villains. More than answers, this documentary tries to pose questions that challenge us as society and as a country,” reads the directors’ note.
The film, directed by Carlos Cárdenas and Héctor Gálvez, also shows how, twenty years after the massacre, human remains from mass graves were exhumed and brought to Lima for scientific investigation and DNA analysis.
The documentary, which has already been featured in Guadalajara’s International Film Festival, Amnesty International’s Movies that Matter Festival, and Munich’s DOK FEST, will be shown across Peru and in Lucanamarca on May 8.
