The history of Peruvian cinema in danger of being lost forever due to the lack of a National Cinematheque

We have two things in common with Guyana and Suriname: We are not going to play the World Cup in Qatar and we do not have a Cinematheque, the space where the audiovisual heritage of a country is gathered, from a cinematographic blockbuster to a video recorded with a cell phone.

Film director and critic Nelson Garcia Miranda He tells us that “for more than 30 years, UNESCO ordered governments to create a Cinematheque where the audiovisual material is kept. That in Peru has not been fulfilled”. Most countries in the world have an institution that manages the visual heritage. And in Latin America almost all, but Peru lacks one.

Legal support for the creation of an institution dedicated to collecting, registering, preserving and disseminating audiovisual works does not exist. For this reason, a growing group of filmmakers, artists and film professionals, organized in the Collective for the National Cinematheque of Peruis promoting the enactment of a law that allows the establishment, by the Government, of the long-awaited Cinematheque.

“Peruvian films from the silent cinema stage such as ‘Hero Pages‘ (1926) and ‘La Perricholi’ (1928) -the first to participate in an international competition-, or ‘Alert on the border’ (1941) are among the few gems that have been preserved”, reveals García Miranda, with great concern.

On the contrary, much of the newsreels of the twenties and thirties, and the first talking movies, are as if they had not been. Also many commercials, documentaries and short films produced and exhibited during the validity of the Film Law (1972-1992) are lost or in a state of deterioration. Therefore, a political decision by the Government to rescue all this audiovisual production cannot be postponed.

During the management of Pedro Castillo, the bill has been presented to three Ministers of Culture: Gisela Ortiz, Alejandro Salas Zegarra and Betssy Chávez. This October 27, “World Audiovisual Heritage Day”, the group held a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Culture, trying to sensitize the authorities and ensure that the project reaches the Culture Commission of the Congressprior approval of the Council of Ministers.

In said sit-in, the filmmaker Ferdinand Valdivia He said that in 1991, when he was still a university student, he had been in Cusco to present a documentary. While he was at the headquarters of the National Institute of Culture, a person came to report the discovery, in the chicken coop of a peasant house, of numerous film reels from the 1940s and 1950s.

“It’s a pity that in Peru you can’t turn to the movies themselves as a source of historical research. The vast majority of the titles consigned in this work are not available for review. The films of the Peruvian silent cinema -as well as many of the sound period- are missing or lost, with few exceptions”, warns the film critic Ricardo Bedoya in his work ‘The silent cinema in Peru’

Time is one of the worst enemies of film documents, because the lack of appropriate conservation conditions causes the drying of the acetate and its subsequent cracking, which leads to its total loss, warns García Miranda. However there are two major enemies; indifference and lack of awareness about the visual memory of our country.

The benefits of having a space with these characteristics are innumerable. From correct cataloging and registration, through the conservation of film documents under the appropriate standards, restoration where necessary, digitization of works from the analog period, research and the organized dissemination of this heritage.

The filmmaker García Miranda is convinced that the sum of wills and the growing commitment of the cultural community and all sectors of society will make the desire of the Cinematheque come true soon.

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