Cinema of Peru

While the Peruvian film industry has not been nearly as prolific as that of some other Latin American countries, such as Mexico or Argentina, some Peruvian movies produced enjoyed regional success. Historically, the cinema of Peru began in Iquitos in 1932 by Antonio Wong Rengifo (with a momentous, initial film billboard from 1900) because the rubber boom and the intense arrival of foreigners with technology to the city, and thus continued an extensive, unique filmography, with a different style than the films made in the capital, Lima.[4][5]

Cinema of Peru
No. of screens555 (2014)[1]
 • Per capita1.5 per 100,000 (2011)[2]
Number of admissions (2011)[3]
Total28,686,304
National films232,657 (0.8%)
Gross box office[3]
TotalPEN 285 million
National filmsPEN 2.11 million (0.7%)
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In Lima, the first Peruvian sound film (with synchronized music and some talking sequences) was Alberto Santana's Resaca, which was released in 1934. This was followed by another sound film entitled Cosas de la vida in 1934. The first all-talking picture, Buscando Olvido, was finally released in 1936.[6]

More recently some bestselling novels by Peruvian author and talk show host Jaime Bayly, including No se lo Digas a Nadie and La Mujer de mi Hermano, have been made into movies. In fact, Francisco Jose Lombardi, perhaps the most important Peruvian filmmaker of recent years, has made most of his films from adaptations of important Peruvian novels. Peru also produced the first animated 3-D film in Latin America, Piratas en el Callao.[7] This film is set in the historical port city of Callao, which during colonial times had to defend itself against attacks by Dutch and British privateers seeking to undercut Spain's trade with its colonies.[8] The film was produced by the Peruvian company Alpamayo Entertainment, which made a second 3-D film one year later: Dragones: Destino de Fuego.[9]

In February 2006, the film Madeinusa, produced as a joint venture between Peru and Spain and directed by Claudia Llosa, was set in an imaginary Andean village and describes the stagnating life of Madeinusa performed by Magaly Solier and the traumas of post-civil war Peru.[10]

Llosa, who shared elements of Gabriel García Márquez's magic realism, won an award at the Rotterdam Film Festival.[11] Llosa's second feature, The Milk of Sorrow ("La Teta Asustada"), was nominated for the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Picture, the first Peruvian film in the Academy's history to be nominated[12] and, won the Golden Bear award at the 2009 Berlinale.[13]

On April 11, 2013, The film ¡Asu Mare! premiered nationwide. This film is an adaptation of a stand-up comedy starring Carlos Alcántara Vilar. The film is actually an autobiography, in which Carlos Alcantara tells his life story and how he became the actor he is today. The film was written and produced by Carlos Alcantara and was a huge box-office hit. Since the release, the actor has gained a lot of popularity. The film is a testament that the comedy genre can strike the right chord in the Peruvian film audience.[14][15]

The Peruvian film industry has witnessed unprecedented development during the late 2010s. In 2015 South American cinema, number of cinema tickets sold in Peru was 46 million in comparison to Argentina's 52.1 million. Peru's television industry has also witnessed a comeback from the 1990s as indicative of the first half of 2016. Subscriptions to Peru cable company Movistar TV represented the third highest increase in Latin America, following that of Mexico and Brazil.[16]

At the Congress of the Republic of Peru, a newly introduced 2019 film bill was defended by Santiago Alfaro as the key to unlocking the Peruvian film industry to new levels. The legislator remarked Peruvian film and animation industry will only flourish if the state promotes the film companies by direct funding. The bill will benefit Peru across two fronts: institutional and economic. Institutionally, at a time when Peruvian film industry is being recognized for its enterprise-level contributions like the movie Ainbo soon to be released in over 108 countries or the television series Taina produced by Red Animation Studios, the bill would broaden the scope of Peruvian film industry to areas outside of Peru. Economically, public funding would parallel film expenditure levels in countries like Brazil and Chile while prioritizing regional cinema.[17]

History

Background

The first performance of a film (using the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers) was performed in February 1897, at the Confiteria Jardin Strasbourg (now Club De La Union), in Lima, Peru.[18] A month earlier, moving images had been projected with the apparatus called Vitascope invented by Thomas Alva Edison.

The audience who witnessed at first, the screenings of the Vitascope and the Cinematographer were from the aristocracy and the images they observed were from landscapes of other countries(in 1899 the first images of Peru were taken). Gradually the functions were reaching the lower social sectors, through street exhibitors who purchased the devices and took them to various places throughout the country, generating the habit and need in the public who paid to see the functions, and thus doing their business. This was due to the fact that cinema brought stimuli from afar, becoming a way to make accessible to people geographical and human landscapes that previously would have never been toured due to lack of transportation (there were only railway routes of the nineteenth century, the construction of road networks was not yet started until 1920s).[19]

Within the cinema of Peru, the cinema of Iquitos, a northern city and the main stage of the rubber fever in the Peruvian Amazon, was developed.[20] The rubber industry benefited from the presence of foreign filmmakers in the city, and cinematographic interest in later years. Antonio Wong Rengifo is the most important pioneer of cinema in Iquitos.[21]

During its early years (until 1913, the year of the first Peruvian fiction film), what the public would see in the shows of moving images were, for example, shootings of bullfights (from Spain, then from Peru) or war views of the Spanish-American war (USA and Spain in Cuba), as well as shots of Peru: landscapes, architecture and society. The aristocratic sectors preferred films shot in foreign urban landscapes, reproduction of historical facts and events of society (aristocracy) in the city of Lima. Popular sectors preferred comic filming.

Statistics

According to the Ministry of Culture in Peru, in 2015, more than 46 million tickets were sold in the cinemas.[22] In 2014 alone, 553 Latin American feature films were released in the region. However, Peruvian films still is outnumbered by foreign films. In 2015, 30 national feature films entered the cinemas compared to 365 foreign feature films. To promote the local film industry, exhibitions promoted by cultural centers such as the Grupo Chaski(Chaski Group) have been set up. These specialized festivals and initiative from cultural centers have supplemented the premiere of films. The initiative has found success, as the exhibition market has seen its revenues in the last decade by increase by fivefold. From 2007 to 2015, revenues increased from 123 million soles to 504 million soles, showing strong support for indigenous local cinema. Population participation is on the upward trend as ticket sales for domestic films grew from 1.3% in 2007 to 11.8% in 2015.[23][lower-alpha 1]

Registro Cinematográfico Nacional (National Film Registry)

Peruvian Film Law No. 26370 has enacted the National Film Registry(RCN) to facilitate the documentation of all the cinematographic events that happen in Peru. As one of the Ministry of Culture's initiative, RCN will allow anyone engaged in activities related to cinematography and the audiovisual content such as performance, script writing, direction, production, cinematography, art direction, sound, editing, post-production, music to enroll in the database. So far RCN has 380 registries nationwide, of which 311 are from Lima representing 81.8% of the total registries, After Lima, the departments with the highest records are Cuzco, La Libertad, and Arequipa.[23][lower-alpha 2]

The Research Institute of the University of Lima conducted an historical analysis of Peruvian cinema and published the results. The findings reveal from 1996 to 2015, 147 films were made of more than 75 minutes and 217 films were made of 45 minutes across different parts of Peru. The most popular genre was melodrama. A list of the most viewed films in the 2010s were tabulated within a range of 20 films with the highest attendance. Even though most of them are of foreign origin, the top 2 movies with the highest attendance were Peruvian films, namely ¡Asu Mare! and ¡Asu Mare! 2 that managed to garner about 3 million spectators. 17 feature films on average each reached one and a half million attendees. The list is mostly composed of comedy films with 3 animation ventures also being highlighted.[23][lower-alpha 3] The Peruvian government actively supports film initiatives with a fund of about 31 million soles given out to 262 national films in the first half of the 2010s. Film project competitions are also held in different categories such as short film, documentary, fiction, development, distribution, among others.

Animation

The sector in Peruvian film industry that is most notable is the animation industry ever since its record-breaking production of South America's first animated feature film.[7] In Latin America in general, there has been renewed interest in animation ever since the late 2010s Ventana Sur's Animation! and Mexico's Pixelatl festivals have inaugurated the creative potential of animators to an international level.[24] Financial backing is the only factor that holds back the Latin American animation industry such as those in Peru.[25]

The Peruvian animation industry is among the most dynamic among the Latin American countries whose products include Condorito: La Película released in 2017, and upcoming Amazon rain forest mythology animation Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon to be released in 2021.[25] Latin American animators are known to present the indigenous local stories with universal themes that can strike the right chord for both domestic as well as international audiences. Milton Guerrero, president of the Peru Animation Guild, says the guild have seen a rise in companies that include over 12 companies with an average of 200 workers. Revenues reach $10 million per year, with significant growth rates projected for 2019. However the challenges facing the industry is exporting of their turnover to producers in other countries and lack of staff. The guild has started initiatives to broaden the benefits of this industry with projects such as in-house training internships and development programs for the young talent internally in companies.[22]

Note
  1. "pg 4 Ministry of Culture"
  2. "pg 6 Ministry of Culture"
  3. "pg 10"

See also

References
  1. "Informe panorámico de las artes y las industrias culturales en el Perú" (PDF).
  2. "Table 8: Cinema Infrastructure - Capacity". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  3. "Table 11: Exhibition - Admissions & Gross Box Office (GBO)". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  4. Herrera Soria, Raul. "IQUITOS UNA DE LAS PRIMERAS CIUDADES QUE HIZO CINE EN EL PERÚ". Amazónico del Perú. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  5. García, Joaquín. "RASGOS HISTÓRICOS DEL CINE EN IQUITOS Y EN LA REGIÓN AMAZÓNICA DEL PERU DESDE LOS ORIGENES HASTA 1990". CETA. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  6. Ferreira, César; Ferreira, César G.; Dargent-Chamot, Eduardo (2003). Culture and Customs of Peru. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30318-0.
  7. Chauvin, Lucien; Chauvin, Lucien (2005-02-27). "Peru toons up 3D feature". Variety. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  8. "Callao, Iquitos, Lima Peru. South America Maritime History and World Seaports during the 1800s. The Maritime Heritage Project. Sea Captains, Ships, Merchants, Merchandise, Immigration and Passengers". www.maritimeheritage.org. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  9. "DRAGONES: DESTINO DE FUEGO (2006)". BFI. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  10. Writer, SUSAN DUNNE; Courant Staff. "`MADEINUSA' IS BEAUTIFULLY MADE BUT UNSETTLING TO WATCH". courant.com. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  11. "Claudia Llosa". IFFR. 2015-09-04. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  12. http://oscar.go.com/
  13. "Peruvian film "The Milk of Sorrow" wins in Berlin". Reuters. 2009-02-15. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  14. "¡ASU MARE! Breaks All-Time Records in Peruvian History". Cinema Tropical. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  15. Praise, Pingback: Peruvian Movie Sets Record Amid; OccuWorld, Criticism | (2013-05-03). "Peruvian Movie Sets Record Amid Praise and Criticism · Global Voices". Global Voices. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  16. "New Animated Rainforest Fable 'Ainbo' Highlights Growth of Peruvian Film Industry". Sounds and Colours. 2017-02-13. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  17. PERÚ, NOTICIAS EL COMERCIO (2019-05-17). "Colaboradores: Beneficios de la ley de cine, por Santiago Alfaro | NOTICIAS EL COMERCIO PERÚ". El Comercio Perú (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  18. Bedoya, Ricardo (2016-03-30). "Wayback Machine" (PDF). web.archive.org. National Library of Peru. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
  19. "Exposición: Celebrando el cine mudo". www.archivoperuano.com. es. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
  20. Centro de Estudios Teológicos de la Amazonía (ed.) El Ceta y el Cine Amazónico.
  21. Verea, José (2015). Pinceladas Culturales: Cine y salas cinematográficas de ayer y hoy. Diario La Región.
  22. GESTIÓN, NOTICIAS (2019-03-20). "Economía: Industria de animación audiovisual requiere más profesionales ante fue | NOTICIAS GESTIÓN PERÚ". Gestión (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  23. "Informe panorámico de las artes y las industrias culturales en el Perú" (PDF).
  24. Hopewell, John; Hopewell, John (2018-11-27). "Ventana Sur's Animation! Marks Latin America's Toon Surge". Variety. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  25. "The New Wave Of Latin American Animated Features: 10 Films To Watch For". www.cartoonbrew.com. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
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