EthnoKino and Quechua Communities Weaving Cultural Memory in Peru
Films and film festivals can serve as powerful spaces for dialogue, reflection, and intercultural encounters. In a world increasingly defined by borders and separation, it is more important than ever to foster spaces that bring people together.
This year, the Centro de Memoria Colectiva “Yarpuyninchik” partnered with the EthnoKino Film Festival to bring a selection of short films and documentaries to Quechua schoolchildren, teachers, and community leaders in the Inkawasi and Kañaris territories of Peru. The films explored cultural diversity and the many ways in which territories and communities are understood, experienced, and represented.
We visited seven small towns, transforming schools, public parks, and community centres into spaces for cinematic encounters and collective reflection. Cinema became an invitation to discuss the preservation of Indigenous languages, ancestral traditions, and traditional practices of caring for water and land. Films from Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Peru were screened for diverse audiences, encouraging dialogue across cultures and generations.
To bring the festival to these communities, we used a newly acquired inflatable screen measuring six metres high and seven metres wide. This mobile cinema allowed us to create audiovisual screening spaces across the region, making cinema more accessible while fostering community participation and engagement.
This initiative forms part of the ongoing work of the Centro de Memoria Colectiva “Yarpuyninchik”, an intercultural project bringing together teachers and community members from Inkawasi and Kañaris to preserve and strengthen the knowledge, memories, and cultural heritage of Northern Quechua peoples. The project received initial funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and is supported by the Universidad Católica Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo.
At the heart of our work is the development of a community archive through the recording and digitisation of photographs, documents, audio recordings, and videos. Since 2025, we have undertaken several initiatives dedicated to preserving and celebrating community cultural memory. These include audiovisual documentation workshops for teachers and students, the publication of the Quechua poetry collection Shumaq Rímay, a travelling photography exhibition, and the creation of an open-access digital repository.
Through this collaboration with EthnoKino, we reaffirm our belief that cinema is more than a medium for storytelling. It is also a space for listening, remembering, exchanging knowledge, and nurturing relationships across communities and cultures.
We hope this partnership with EthnoKino will continue to flourish for many years to come, bringing cinema, cultural memory, and meaningful encounters to even more communities!
Authored by Walther Maradiegue
Photographs by Walther Maradiegue & Diego Gonzales Gastulo
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