Palito Ortega Matute

Eduardo is 12 years old when he realizes that he is not like the other children in his town. The macho family structure and the physical brutality with which his older brothers fight the first signs of his transsexuality, leave the boy no other way out than to flee his home and his town. Not even the indifference of the city serves as protection. Prostitution exposes him even more to a society that does not know how to respond to what it does not understand, if not with mistreatment and aggression.

Adrian Mendoza (52) has become a widow due to the effects of the war and together with his children, Juan de Dios (12) and Maria del Carmen (10), confronts the fatal situation that prevails in the convulsed city of Ayacucho. Adrian is returning to his home with Juan de Dios when a police patrol stops him for a routine search. Tthe police take him into custody as a presumed terrorist on the basis of subversive messages coming from the radio. He is branded as a terrorist and a fugitive from the law. In the days that follow more than a dozen soldiers raid his home and he is taken to the dreaded Pink House where he will be cruelly tortured.

In a town there are strange deaths, apparently caused by jarjachas, monstrous creatures that incestuous lovers become at night. Cirilo, Mateo and Remigio, with the help of a priest, will try to hunt them down and eliminate them.

Cirilo is an orphan kid. His fathers were killed by revolutionary anti-imperalists.

After Pedro's murder by the military, the complaint filed by his father is unsuccessful. However, the man finds the solidarity of two members of the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, who try to recruit him and his family to join the organization. Although they reject the proposal, the intelligence service members assume the opposite and make the father disappear. His wife and son search for him unsuccessfully in different police stations and barracks. They also ask the bishop of the city for help, but he justifies military actions in response to terrorist acts.

El Demonio de los Andes, directed by Palito Ortega Matute, is based on the Andean myth of the Jarjacha, a demonic character set on destroying everyone it comes across. The legend of the Jajacha has been passed down from generation to generation. Ortega Matute spoke to people who were told about it by their parents, who had been told the tale by their parents. He also listened to accounts from people who say they’ve seen the demon with their own eyes.