Wiñaypacha, directed by Óscar Catacora and produced by his independent company Cine Aymara, was released in 2017. The film is set in the Peruvian Andes and tells the story of an elderly couple from an Indigenous community who face the hardships of living in isolation in the mountains while waiting for their son.

Willka and Phaxsi are two grandparents who live abandoned in the heights of the Andes, struggling to survive with the bare minimum. They keep their Indigenous traditions alive every day, carrying out their daily tasks in a lonely field, accompanied by their dog and surrounded by their llamas. The film shows how the couple fights harder and harder to survive in misery. Their anguish comes from having very limited resources, where even a simple trip to the city to buy matches turns into an arduous journey and a symbol of how indigenous communities, and especially the elderly are often forgotten by the system in many Latin American countries.

Every moment in the film moves the audience, as we see how, despite knowing nothing about their son, the grandparents still hold onto the hope that he will come back to help them. Gradually, that hope fades as they reflect on how their son changed after moving to the city, developing resentment toward his Indigenous and rural origins.

The movie stands out for its artistic cinematography and the way it uses camera angles to emphasize how the towering mountains embody loneliness. Another remarkable aspect is that the film is entirely in Aymara, an indigenous language. Director Óscar Catacora even cast his own grandfather in the movie. Having grown up in a similar setting with his grandparents, Catacora brought a rare authenticity to the story (“Wiñaypacha” by Óscar Catacora: the moving Peruvian film starring an elderly woman who had never seen a film).

The pacing may feel slow at first, but I believe that’s necessary to draw the audience into the Andean culture and help them build empathy for the characters. That way, viewers can truly feel the weight of the events that unfold in the second half of the film.

In my opinion, this is one of the most moving films I’ve ever seen. It proves that you don’t need an absurdly large budget to create something extraordinary.

The film has won a total of five international awards and is currently available on Prime Video. Sadly, director Óscar Catacora passed away in November 2021 at the age of 34 due to health issues (Peruvian film director Óscar Catacora dies at 34).

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  5/5