Juana Burga, top model, actress and activist, was 14 years old when she thought of being independent to help her parents. She at 16 she won the Elite Model Look contest. “Coming from Barrios Altos, from a place that I feel is loved, but of course, it is a difficult place to grow up, gave me experiences that have made me have my feet firmly on the ground. That has been an engine, not only the upbringing of my parents. I tell myself: ‘I’m going to keep fighting,’ ”she comments on Zoom.
Burga has walked the world’s catwalks, been on the cover of magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and applied to one of the most prestigious acting schools. Next week she will come to the Lima Film Festival to see The Most Feared Skin, her second film. For the actress, there is a connection with her character, a young woman who returns to her country after 22 years. “It has been a journey and learning. It is such a foreign country to her because her mother tried to cover up that past, but her past always comes back. Alejandra tries to heal that wound”.
Joel Calero’s film is the second story in a “political-film trilogy” that began with La última tarde. In the film, the protagonist leaves Peru as a child and travels to Europe, where she lives with her mother. Her return to Cusco is to sign the million-dollar sale of her grandparents’ house. Along the way, she discovers that she is the daughter of a man convicted of joining the Shining Path. “I think being in the flesh with her story helps her a lot to understand her mother and to forgive.”
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Calero had in mind the film before the pandemic and Juana Burga as the protagonist. The director updates the script, makes parallels and mentions the health crisis that caused more than 200,000 deaths. “Hats off to the way he writes and the way he adapts to circumstances. We were doing Zoom and we were like, ‘Do we do it?’ We didn’t know if there would be a quarantine. (The internal armed conflict) is a past that we have all suffered and is part of our history. In order to heal, you have to speak and show, just like in the movie.”
─We see two sides of Cusco and part of the weight of the film falls on your work alongside María Luque.
─It was wonderful. She is a super actress and she comes from a home where she has been mistreated, where she has had to fight to raise her children and now she is the founder of a group of women actresses from the highlands; there is a connection between Alejandra and Dominga. I’m like that with my grandmother and she’ll be at the festival, she’s my number one critic because she’s very direct, I’m a little afraid of her (smiles). But I am happy.
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─Is that what you look for in the characters?
Yes, one of the things that I enjoy the most about acting is being able to connect, it’s a bit of giving voice to these women who don’t have it or are afraid to express themselves. It happened to me a lot with Yaku (in Los últimos), experiencing the problems that existed with the scarcity of water and speaking with the people in the area, you understand more. The same thing happened to me with Alejandra, I was able to walk, talk and thank them for allowing us to record. It helped me to have their point of view.
─You are an activist and you have the Nuna Awaq Foundation. Now the industry you’re in is at a standstill and figures like Meryl Streep donate millions. Do you see it as a precedent for something?
─Well, it’s a situation that affects everyone. It’s a whole chain and I think it’s a process that’s going to take a long time. But it is a joy that we all join in and that it is a joint effort. I was working on a production that is with a director and actors from New York and we had to postpone it because of the strike, we do it for support. The premieres are being cancelled, but it is a battle that affects so many and (at the same time) it will help us to be able to achieve what we are trying to ask for, which simply… (smiles) are things that have to change, yes or yes because it’s going to help people who are less supported and new players like me. Hopefully it will be an example for different industries. It will help a lot to raise awareness in other industries and see the problems that we have to change.
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