Much had been written about the new generation of Peruvian women filmmakers in Peru itself but surprisingly little was known about them further afield.
These talented women have pursued careers in the UK or the USA and have quickly made their mark on the international film industry: to date their films have been exhibited at more than 140 international film festivals and have won over 50 international awards between them. On the 190th anniversary of Peruvian Independence, we presented an unprecedented UK screening of these multi-award winning Peruvian shorts at Rich Mix on Thursday 28th July.
Leading the group is internationally-acclaimed director Claudia Llosa, who has scooped awards for her films Madeinusa (2006) and The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada, 2009) at some of the most prestigious international film festivals. Hot on her heels is Rosario Garcia-Montero, who premiered her first feature film, The Bad Intentions (Las Malas Intenciones, 2011), at the Berlinale earlier this year. Although both of these directors are known and revered in international film circles, on this occasion we decided to showcase the works and names of several lesser-known female filmmakers who will be achieving soon this level of international recognition.
These were the featured films and directors: Enrica Pérez (Taxista, 2007), Marianela Vega-Oroza (Conversation II, 2007), Valeria Ruiz (A Moment, 2006), Claudia Sparrow (El Americano, 2008), Silvana Aguirre (Ela, 2007), Gabriela Yepes (Danzak, 2009), Cayetana Carrión & Camila Valdeavellano (Salmo’s Memories, 2007) and Melina León (Lili’s Paradise, 2009).
The film screening was followed by a live painting show to the beats of an explosive DJ set by Karlos “Kanti” Kena from London’s very own Amazonian Cumbia band, Los Chinches. While London-based Peruvian visual artist Gus Gracey let his artistic juices flow, “Kanti” played an exciting selection of Chicha, Huayno, Criollo, Afro-Peruvian beats, vernacular Andino and modern Peruvian rhythms in store that kept us moving ‘til midnight!
With special thanks to Beatriz Nicasio Vizcay for her contribution to the film programme.
Film Programme
A Moment. Dir: Valeria Ruiz / UK / 2006 / 5’
A portrayal of an elderly woman’s grief and her memories of intimate moments.
El Americano. Dir: Claudia Sparrow / USA, Peru / 2008 / 24’
Mar, an indigenous Peruvian girl, dreams of moving to the United States, hoping for a better future. As her plans to pat for her plane ticket unravel, Mar starts on an eye-opening journey.
Ela. Dir: Silvana Aguirre / UK / 2007 / 12’
We meet 8 year-old Ela in a very particular moment of her life. The moment she experiences loss for the first time.
Lili’s Paradise (El Paraíso de Lili). Dir: Melina León / USA, Peru / 16’
Group of episodes in the life of Lili Jiménez, a precocious Peruvian girl set in 1988, in the context of Peru’s worst financial crisis and political upheaval.
Taxista. Dir: Enrica Pérez / Peru / 2007 / 21’
Fighting for survival, a man is caught up in the clandestine underworld of Peruvian nightlife, ultimately finding himself confronted with his own lack of humanity.
Salmo’s Memories (Memorias de Salmo Trutta). Dir: Cayetana Carrión & Camila Valdeavellano / USA, Peru / 2007 / 5’
While contemplating the reflection of his scarred face through the old mirror of the bathroom, Salmo is submerged into the remote recollection of memories: the peculiar story of his ancestor, Albus Trutta, told by an old aunt. This reminiscence will reveal to him the mystery of his own reflected image.
Conversation II. Dir: Marianela Vega-Oroza / Peru, USA / 2007 / 16’
The film offers an intimate look at the female universe, a journey in time through evocative images and the testimonies of women from the same family. The personal search of a daughter in the life of her mother and grandmother, contrasting the dreams, ideas and experiences of three generations.
Danzak. Dir: Gabriela Yepes / Peru / 2008 / 19’
Nina is a 10 year old girl whose life dramatically changes when her father and Scissor Dancer master asks her to fulfill his last wish. Inspired on a short story by Peruvian writer Jose María Arguedas, “The Agony of Rasu Ñiti”.
Directors:
ENRICA PÉREZ: after completing a MFA in Film Directing at Columbia University, New York, she returned to Lima with many interesting projects up her sleeve. Her short film Taxista (2007) scooped awards such as Best Fiction Short Film and Best Narrative Award in Peru and New York at several international festivals. She also awarded the Adrienne Shelly Award for Best Female Director by the Adrienne Shelly Foundation and the Someone to Watch Award from Cinewomen NY. In 2008, she won a scholarship to participate in the prestigious La Femis film programme in Paris. There she directed her latest short film, De Mon Cote (2009), which was produced and co-written with French filmmakers. At the beginning of 2009, Enrica opened Sexto Sentido, a film production company that focuses on the developing, financing, producing and distributing independent Latin American films of international quality and worldwide commercial potential. With this company she is currently developing her first feature film, Climas – a 3 story film that takes place in three different regions across Peru. The project has already won two important production funds: CONACINE and IBERMEDIA, and shooting is scheduled to begin in June 2012.
MARIANELA VEGA-OROZA: Marianela obtained her MFA in Film Production at the University of Texas, Austin, where she was awarded the Jessie Jones Fellowship, the Warren Skaaren Scholarship and the Long Lozano Research Grant. Her work has been screened at numerous festivals and galleries across the world, including the Centre of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona (CCCB), the Experimental Film Week in Madrid and the Women And Their Work Gallery in Austin, Texas. Marianela’s short documentary Conversations II (2007) has received eight awards at a variety of international festivals (Portugal, USA, Peru and Spain) for Best Documentary and Best Director. Combining different formats, genres and visual elements, Marianela approaches filmmaking from an intimate point of view. Her films are a personal journey and explore themes such us identity, family and memory. Marianela is currently writing her first feature length film.
CLAUDIA SPARROW: Claudia was selected as a Fulbright Scholar in 2001 to study Film and Video at Bennington College in Vermont. During this time, she directed several short films and also studied film for a year in Madrid. For her senior thesis, Claudia wrote and directed her film, The Loss of Me, which was shot in Lima, Peru. In recognition of her work, she was invited to join the prestigious American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles and awarded the Mary Pickford Foundation Endowed Scholarship. Claudia’s AFI thesis film El Americano (2008), was shot in Lima and Los Angeles and won a 2009 Student Emmy Award in the drama category and the 2009 Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award. She is currently developing her feature film If You Close Your Eyes, which is due to be filmed in Los Angeles later this year.
SILVANA AGUIRRE: Silvana received her BA degree in Visual Studies at Lima University, Peru. After working as a writer for several TV shows, she made her first short film as a writer/director, Esperanza (2004), and it went on to win the National Council of Peru Award. She continued her studies at the National Film and Television School in the UK where she made Ela (2007), which was shortlisted for an Oscar 2008 and has won several international awards such as the Grand Prize at Tehran International Film Festival, Best International Short Film Youth Jury at Odense Film Festival and Best Cinematography at the Kodak Awards UK. In 2009, Silvana completed her latest short film Crossing which won the Best Director and the Audience Awards at Lima Film Festival 2009, as well as the Audience Award and the ARTE prize at the 22nd Dresden International Short Film Festival in Germany. She is currently developing two feature film projects, one as a writer/director to be filmed in her native Peru and the other one as a co-writer and director for a UK production company which is due to be filmed in Pakistan.
GABRIELA YEPES: Gaby is a filmmaker and producer based in Peru and the USA. She holds a BA from the Communications School at the University of Lima, Peru, and an MFA in Film and Video Production from the University of Texas, Austin. She works in documentary and narrative. Her films have been shown on national television and have featured at a number of film festivals, such as Tribeca, Sao Paulo, Malaga, Chicago, Austin, San Diego, Toulouse, Dallas and Lima, to name but a few. Gaby has also worked as a production manager, script and post supervisor in short and feature films in Peru, USA and Eastern Europe. In 2009, she took part in the Berlinale Talent Campus and in 2010 she directed her first feature length documentary Tales from the Top of the World.
MELINA LEÓN: Melina splits her time between Lima and New York. She holds a MFA in Film Production from Columbia University, New York, where she received several fellowships including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Grant. Her thesis short film, Lili’s Paradise (2009), officially premiered at the 47th New York Film Festival (2009) and was awarded Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Actor by the National Film Council of Peru. Melina’s work aims to reflect the ironies and cycles of life. Her inspiration comes above all from her socialist and otherwise unruly family, the collective theatre group Yuyachkani, and the Peruvian poet José Watanabe, who told her to view films as a form of poetry. The original script of Melina’s feature film project, Song Without A Name, was co-written with novelist Michael J. White and is currently being developed by Belladonna Productions.
VALERIA RUIZ: Valeria received her BA degree in Visual Studies at Lima University. After graduating, her first short film The Elevator (1999) won several prizes in Peru and was screened at various international film festivals. Valeria was then sponsored by the United Nations Volunteers Odyssey to shoot reportages in Thailand, Nepal, Spain, Brazil, USA, Tanzania and Lebanon. She then moved to the UK and won a scholarship for a two-year MA in Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School where she directed several shorts, two of which – A Moment (2006) and King of London (2006) – have been screened at more than 40 festivals worldwide and have won many prestigious awards. Valeria is now based in Peru working as a freelance writer-director and she is also developing her first feature film project Finding Paloma, which was featured at the Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam and awarded a Special Jury Mention at the Morelia Lab 2009 in Mexico.
CAYETANA CARRIÓN AND CAMILA VALDEAVELLANO: Cayetana lives in Brussels. She graduated in Linguistics and Literature in the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium and undertook animation classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY, USA. Camila lives in Lima. She graduated from interior architecture and product design in Paris, école Camondo, Paris, France and specialized as art director at the Latin-American Cinema School, San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Salmo’s Memories is a stop-motion animation entirely conceived, made, directed and produced by Camila Valdeavellano and Cayetana Carrion, when they were living in NYC. The short was screened at the Queens Museum of Art (NY, USA), at the Museo del Barrio in Manhattan (NY, USA), at several festivals in Europe (Interfilm Berlin, Germany; Animatic Festival in Bermigham, UK; I Castelli Animati, Rome, Italy; Festival Cuentometrajes, Los Silos, Islas Canarias, Spain) and in Peru (Short Films International Festival, Cuzco, Peru – award for the best animation; Filmocorto Competition at the Lima Festival organised by the Filmoteca of Lima, Peru – award for the best animation). It has also participated at the I Festival de Animacion Festianima Peru 2008 (jury award); Chicago Latino Film Festival, 2008; Festival Cine Peruano en Argentina (Peruba), 2010. They are currently working on their second animation project G Station based on the poem Casa de Cuervos from peruvian poet Blanca Varela.
