Mothers of the Land

Feliciano, an 8-year-old alpaca herder, feels euphoric: Peru has a chance to qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile the pressure of a mining company puts Feliciano’s village at risk and threatens his world and his dreams.

Clara is a teenager growing up in a small indigenous community high in the Andes. Her adoptive mother, a midwife who took her in as a baby, has taught her the ancient songs used to guide women through childbirth, melodies passed down for generations, believed to bring new life safely into the world. But while her voice carries on this tradition, her dreams lie elsewhere: she longs to leave the mountains behind and become a folkloric music star in the big city.

Cargo boats form a non-lieu, a space of transition for the traveler staking journeys that can last days, as well as for the indigenous communities living on the edges of the Amazon River, fighting for the survival of their cultural traditions and struggling to adapt to modernity.

Rancas is a rural community near Cerro de Pasco, in the Pasco region. Through four festivities (Carnival or Andean branding, All Saints' Day, the vicuña roundup, and the feast of the patron saint, Saint Anthony of Rancas) held at different times of the year, we will learn about the community and how its inhabitants celebrate these festivals.

A girl and a grandmother reflect on a dream in the Peruvian Amazon. They develop a deeper connection.

The lush green of the foliage forms a quivering reflection on the surface of the Amazon. According to the legends of the indigenous people of the region, the Yacurunas live beneath the water, in submerged cities that are the mirror image of human ones. Yet the film deals neither with mythical creatures nor with legends, catapulting viewers instead right into the midst of this incredibly green world.

Early every morning, young Jorge harvests bananas with his machete. After breakfast back in his village, he wanders with his friends in the lush wilderness around the Amazon headwaters. Childhood could hardly be more carefree or peaceful.

The city of Cerro de Pasco, with approximately 80,000 inhabitants, is being steadily encroached upon by mining, which has generated a series of socio-environmental impacts. The Volcan mining company seeks to expand its operations, which will require displacing an old part of the city, at the cost of destroying historical monuments and thus damaging local identity.