Cinema
Los ronderos
Marianne Eyde · 1987
Synopsis
The ronderos: in the province of Chota, in Cajamarca, during the seventies, life in the peasant hamlets is disturbed by repeated cattle thefts. The villagers then organise themselves into patrols, the rondas campesinas, to confront the thieves themselves, and the film follows the birth of this self-defence system; one patrol captures three cattle thieves, then releases them.
Context
Shot in six weeks with the departmental federation of peasant patrols (rondas campesinas) of Chota, the film was Marianne Eyde's first feature; its performers, all amateurs, came from sixteen villages, and teachers from the teacher training college of Chota took part. It was financed by the receipts of approved short films and by a loan from the Industrial Bank of Peru. The censors passed it, assuring the director that no one would go to see it; it opened in Cajamarca, Chiclayo and Lima.
Who it is for
In Spanish. Those being watched are the ronderos themselves: the film was made with them, not about them.
Prizes and reception
More than half a million admissions in Peru; selected at the Mannheim-Heidelberg and Tashkent festivals, and at an Argentine festival of women's cinema.