A long-haired man from Cusco, wearing a hat and an Andean backpack, dressed entirely in black, illuminated the gala of the 38th edition of the Mar del Plata Film Festival with a short speech that stirred fibers: “In Peru there is a dictatorship, a group of thugs who have killed more than 80 people in my country, many of whom could have been the protagonists (of this story),” he said, sparking applause from the audience. To them, to those who died during the protests against the Government of Dina Boluarte, and to her mother, for giving her life, he dedicated the premiere of Kinrahis debut feature, the film that took ten years to bring to the big screen, and which won the festival's biggest prize: the Astor Piazzolla 2023, in the Best Feature Film category.
“I have a political commitment to life. It would have been incoherent not to say anything,” says Marco Panatonic, director of Kinra, the new milestone of Peruvian cinema. A drama about migration from the countryside to the city, starring Quechua speakers and recorded in Cusco, in the province of Chumbivilcas. In another part of the screen we are accompanied from Madrid by the other bishop of the film: Arequipa producer Walter Manrique, who initially joined Kinra in his capacity as a lawyer to advise Panatonic on copyright issues.
Although the triumph of Kinra has not monopolized the covers or the grid of television channels—despite being the highest caliber film award in national cinema since the Golden Bear of The scared tit at the 2009 Berlinale—are auspicious times for the tandem. More and more media and festivals are interested in the story of Atoqcha (Zorro in Quechua), a clever young man who is forced to leave his mother on the farm to study civil engineering in the capital of his region, located in the southern mountains. From Peru. Mar del Plata welcomed the film after three rejections in other calls. And if it did not premiere in 2023, perhaps they would have had to return the economic stimulus from the Ministry of Culture that they received in 2017.
Kinra It exists by a sum of wills: by a production team that does not exceed twenty people and that comes from the regions of Cusco, Arequipa and Puno; by a cast of amateur actors who had never acted and who would never have had the opportunity to star in a feature film; for the solidarity of friendly producers who lowered their prices or even lent their equipment; by the impetus of Marco Anatoni Vega Cuba – the director's real name –, the boy who after studying Communication Sciences was rejected by some film schools but continued with his production company Films Bastardía; and for a State fund that was used penny by penny, in times when certain congressmen want to clip the wings of regional cinema.
“Cinema is also a right. UNESCO recommends that countries allocate 1% of their budget to culture, and we are very far from getting there. Kinra It is a valuable film because it shows us problems that are made visible. It is very important that the State actively participates. It is an issue that transcends cinema. It is a question of democracy, of citizen exercise,” says producer Walter Manrique. In his heartfelt speech in Mar del Plata, Marco Panatonic said that he doubted whether to continue making films, because “in his country there is a fascism that wants to destroy it,” in reference to the bill by parliamentarian Adriana Tudela, of the Avanza País party. , which seeks to repeal the current film law and, thereby, cut subsidies for film productions.
“Although it is not a film entirely in Quechua. A project like this, which won a fund in the native languages category, had to be done with Quechua speakers, who are also usually absent in the films. It was a matter of coherence. They have contributed with their humanities,” explains Panatonic, whose mother, Guadalupe Cuba, a community defender, was part of the art direction of the film. It was she who sowed pride in an ancient language, cut off by centralism.
Panatonic's influences are diverse, from Flaviano Quispe from Juliaca, through Palito Ortega from Ayacucho to Asian and African cinema. Some of the light bulbs that illuminated him in his debut feature were the Senegalese Ousmane Sembene, the Filipino Lav Díaz, and the Taiwanese Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang, among others. “Kinra It is an observational film that dialogues with contemporary cinema. Or at least that's what I've tried,” says Marco Panatonic modestly, who usually says that his generation has had more privileges when accessing training workshops.
Together with Manrique, both are working on the teaser, a pending account of a film that not only attracts attention for its vindictive look and distance from serial cinema, but also for its duration: 157 minutes. A full-length feature film. Manrique tells that Kinra It will continue its journey through other festivals, but does not rule out entering the commercial circuit. In 2024 it can be seen in Peru. Panatonic and Manrique's white lie is that the world premiere of Kinra In reality it was not in Mar del Plata, but in the communities of Chumbivilcas. A special performance for the cast. Kinrathe latest event in South American cinema, takes flight.
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