Friday 31 October 2008

Peru: State of Fear in Quechua

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2011: Spanish-language version of State of Fear/Estado de Miedo can now be viewed online here

What fantastic news (thanks to Andrea Naranjo at Luna Antagonica via Gran Combo Club for drawing it to my attention). State of Fear, a documentary which I recommend highly, is now available in Quechua.

On their website, filmmaker Paco de Onis explains,
The Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Commission (PTRC), whose work State of Fear is based on, found that 70% of the conflict’s more than 69,000 victims, mostly innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, were Quechua speakers – so we felt it was imperative to make a version of the film dubbed into Quechua, to make the findings of the PTRC available to the audience most affected by Peru’s war on terror

Too true. Screenings of the Quechua language version have been held in Peru. Moreover,
In order to make sure that the EDMQ version has as wide a reach as possible, we are promoting the copyleft concept and encouraging people to make as many copies of the film as they need, and download the screening workshop guide from the project web hub. Human rights organization COMISEDH, our key collaborator in the Ayacucho area, told audience members that if they brought a blank DVD to their offices they would burn them a copy, and they’ve been going like hotcakes.

I can only applaud de Onis, and director Pamela Yates, for this important move. Now, if only it were so easy to get hold of an English language copy of the film. The rest of us will just have to keep looking out for screenings at human rights film events and on public broadcasters.

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