Inside Down Basement

Surrounded by social and political chaos in Lima during the summer of 1992, Lucia, Aurora, and their mother, Elena, plan to leave and seek opportunities in the United States. Their farewell involves reconnecting with their estranged father, Carlos, adding turbulence to the regrets, hopes, and fears of their emotional departure.

Renzo Collazos has been a recognized journalist for the political section of the newspaper El Comercio for a year. One morning, the website editor asks him to manage a blog dedicated to youth and write weekly about his pale social-sentimental-sexual life. Collazos accepts, convinced that he has nothing important to tell: he has no partner; he still lives with his mother; in his spare time he reads, writes poetry, masturbates, and is fed up with the fact that his closest friends have married (because he also wanted to marry). Unexpectedly, the Wanted Girlfriend blog becomes a success as Renzo writes about his cynical love dilemmas, from the marriage of his ex-girlfriend to the failed night raids on Friday and Saturday, and he gains popularity. That fame makes him a more selfish, more vain, more stupid guy who ends up sabotaging his relationships. He finds a girlfriend, but she decides to end things and his world falls apart again. Realizing what he has become, he decides to change.

Clemente, a moneylender of few words, is a new hope for Sofía, his single neighbor, devoted to the October worship of Our Lord of the Miracles. They're brought together over a new-born baby, fruit of Clemente's relationship with a prostitute who's nowhere to be found. While Clemente is looking for the girl's mother, Sofía cares for the baby and looks after the moneylender's house. With the arrival of these beings in his life, Clemente has the opportunity to reconsider his emotional relations with people

Guadeloupe is the housekeeper of the bitchy and always busy lady Paula. Due to the busyness of the mistress, Guadeloupe practically replaced the mother of Señora Paula's children.

Constantino Zegarra is a principled Peruvian government official who stands apart from his corrupt colleagues. Throughout his two-decade career, he has steadfastly resisted corruption, driven by the memory of his father's impoverished end due to corruption. At forty, he is a dedicated family man with a teenage daughter who challenges his views. One morning, he survives a gunshot to the throat, rendering him mute. Upon recovery, he is certain that someone from his office attempted to kill him.

Roberto, a Peruvian boy in his teens, has moved to Montreal to live with his father, Bob Montoya, and his new Canadian family. While Bob tries to succeed in his new life as a small time "business man", the ties with his son will be marked by a quiet violence that seems to have followed them from their country of origin.

Eleven award winning directors explore why nearly one out of every two students in Latin America never graduates high school.