Cinema
Courage
Coraje
Alberto Durant · 1998
Synopsis
In Villa El Salvador, a city built in the desert at the gates of Lima, María Elena Moyano, an Afro-Peruvian leader, heads the women's federation of a town that its inhabitants built and organised themselves. When the Shining Path seeks to subjugate the neighbourhood, she must face crisis, hunger, administrative obstacles and terror, and decides to publicly denounce the movement's campaign of hatred. A Spanish doctor remembers her.
Context
The film is a co-production between Agua Dulce Films and Fernando Colomo's Spanish company. Alberto Durant wrote the screenplay with Ana Caridad Sánchez; the lead role went to Olenka Cepeda, supported by Rosana Pastor and Salvador del Solar. Rather than a flawless heroine, the film shows an ordinary woman, mother of two children, beset by doubt and discouragement, who nonetheless finds the courage to speak out; the Time Out review praised a story that never gives in to the sensational.
Who it is for
In Spanish. It is necessary to know what Villa El Salvador was: a city built on sand by its inhabitants, who ran it themselves.
Prizes and reception
Presented at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 1999, and shown at the National Library of Peru in 2019.
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