Cinema
Kukuli
Eulogio Nishiyama · 1961
Synopsis
Kukuli, a young shepherdess who lives with her grandparents in the heights of Paucartambo, sets out for the festival of the Mamacha Carmen, in the town of the same name. On the way she meets Alaku, a peasant who has lost his land and who seduces her; the couple, united on trial, go to consult a sorcerer. On the festival square, among the masked dancers, appears the ukuku, the bear-man of Andean tales who carries off young girls.
Context
Kero Films produced with the Cine Club Cusco this film, which three members of the same circle, Eulogio Nishiyama, Luis Figueroa and César Villanueva, directed together. Shot in colour, on sixteen-millimetre, and processed at the Alex laboratories in Buenos Aires, it has Quechua dialogue by Hernán Velarde, a Spanish narration by Sebastián Salazar Bondy and music by Armando Guevara Ochoa. The premiere took place at the Le Paris cinema in Lima on 27 July 1961; specialists in Andean culture were indignant at the scene in which Alaku seduces Kukuli.
Who it is for
The dialogue is entirely in Quechua; a commentary in Spanish, spoken in voice-over, accompanies the viewer.
Prizes and reception
The first film spoken in Quechua, shown at the second Moscow festival in 1961; its success led Georges Sadoul to speak of a Cuzco school.
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