Punku | Peruvian farewell to summer in Amondo

“Punku” in Quechua means gate. In the film Molero (Videophilia, 15th NH), a portal to the other world opens with all the intensity of a dreamy dream and feverish beacons. Meshia, a teenage girl from the Matsigenka tribe, finds a boy wandering around in the Peruvian jungle as if he had returned from the afterlife. Circumstances indicate that this is considered the deceased Ivan, who disappeared in another part of the country two years ago. How did a child survive so much time alone in the jungle? No one will know, because Ivan does not remember anything and does not say anything. He also loses his sight. Meshia brought him to the world of the living, and now she is responsible for it. Together they set off on a journey to his hometown. Their hallucinatory journey is a rescue mission and a rite of passage: from childhood to adulthood, from the present to the past, from the physical to the spiritual world. Along the way, languages and time are intertwined: Quechua and TikTok, rituals and selfies, childhood and something much older. Molero combines analog formats (Super 8 and 16 mm) with digital to create a kaleidoscopic vision of growing up in Peru. Iván is silent haunted by hallucinations, Meshia tries to take her place in a world that either fetishizes her or rejects her. Punku is a song about growing up and about friendship like a shared dream. About a gate that can only be crossed with your eyes closed.

(~Ewa Szabłowska)