Sínelection: Punku

Followed by a talk with J.D. Fernández Molero

Along a river in the Peruvian jungle, Meshia, a Matsigenka teenager, discovers Iván, a young man who disappeared two years earlier, unconscious and in need of medical attention. She takes him to hospital in Quillabamba, where he reunites with his family. Invited to stay with them, Meshia begins working at their bar, entering a world of beauty pageants, predatory men and uncertain futures. Meanwhile, Iván refuses to speak, his damaged sight haunted by strange visions.

Set in Quillabamba, a town at the threshold between the Andes and the Amazon, Punku moves between the everyday and the supernatural, weaving together hand-processed Super 8 and 16mm, digital video, TikTok reels and stop-motion animation. Meaning “gateway” in Quechua, its title evokes the passages that structure the film: between Indigenous cultures and contemporary media, memory and hallucination, the visible and the unseen. Through these shifting forms, Fernández Molero constructs a fragmented, dreamlike portrait of a place shaped by overlapping histories and worlds.