NALAS Conference 2025

Description

Panel organiser and member.
Interculturality, Eco-Imaginaries and Activism through Film
This panel seeks to address the recent significant turn in Peruvian cinema - documentary and fiction, feature and short forms - towards activism and in particular a concern, explicit and implicit, with the natural environment of this nation and its multifarious, intersecting and conflicting regions. It considers the need to produce a framework for thinking about film and culture that is much more heterogenous and that refuses to regard the capital of Lima as its centre. The current difficult political context for Peru is taken into account, as is its increasingly flourishing film production arena as an urgent site, we argue, of activism, art and engagement. The notion of land and the concept of territory are at the heart of this thinking, as are the people who inhabit them, as they have done so for centuries. We take inspiration from activist-intellectuals such as Veronica Gago, whose work has examined how Latin American neoliberalism is propelled not just from above by international finance, corporations, and government, but also by the activities of migrant workers, vendors, sweatshop workers, and other marginalized groups.
Research paper: New Eco-imaginaries in contemporary Peruvian cinema
After its premier at Lima Film Festival in 2023, the first subsequent screening of Historias de Shipibos was in the Amazonian city of Pucallpa, where the film was made, specifically in the Shipibo community of San Francisco. The film tells the story of the life of Bewen, a young Shipibo boy growing up in his community and then moving to the city where he encounters numerous difficulties integrating into urban society. Issues raised include those to do with identity, language, customs and ancestral knowledge – and discrimination against much of these.
Described by critics as a “small Amazonian epic”, this is perhaps director Omar Forero’s most ambitious film, in terms of scale and scope, including with four first-time actors playing the main role during his lifetime. It’s also the first time the director has filmed outside his home region of Trujillo in the northern coastal area of Peru, raising questions about intra-regional representation.
This paper explores the genesis of this film, its intentions and its impact and asks to what extent it might – through its images of the Peruvian Amazon – contribute to a new eco-imaginary of the region.

Period	19 Jun 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Bergen, NorwayShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International