HUGO BLANCO,
DEEP RIVER
Portrait of the 'Peruvian Che Guevara', a famous Trotskyist and legendary peasant leader of the sixties: Hugo Blanco preferred to deconstruct his leadership and encourage self-government, becoming an anonymous activist: Hugo Indio.
Starting with a journey to the forgotten jungle village where Blanco’s fight and fame began, the film director looks for the traces of the young black-bearded man with a gun on his shoulder and raised fist shouting "Land or Death!" and finds the traces of the indigenous peasant movement.
In the second part - in the aftermath of the Peruvian Internal Armed Conflict - she meets the tireless Hugo Blanco, her father’s revolutionary hero, in person. He is now a white-bearded indigenous and environmental activist: Hugo Indio.
The film is a diptych divided by a hiatus of silence and mourning for the rivers of indigenous blood that flowed when a generation’s dream, the one of the armed revolution, turned into a nightmare.
International outreach
The world premiere took place in the International Competition at the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague on the 12th March 2019.
The North American premiere was at the biggest indigenous film festival worldwide: ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Canada.
Awards
Best international documentary film 13. ATLANTIDOC
International Documentary Film Festival of Uruguay, 2019
Special mention "Ojo Latinoamericano". PUKAÑAWI
XVI. Internacional Human Rights Festival of Sucre, Bolivia, 2020
Best Peruvian Feature Documentary film
National Film Festival of Huánuco, Peru, 2019
Alternative Distribution in Peru
The Peruvian premiere took place in August 2019 at the
Festival de Cine de Lima.
2019 the film traveled in an alternative rural distribution in Cusco, Peru, thanks to a project funded by the Film Section of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, Dirección del Audiovisual, la Fonografía y los Nuevos Medios (DAFO). The film reached 1800 people in 6 screenings communitarian organized.
2020 due to the pandemic, several Virtual Communitarian Screenings took place online and reached at least 10.000 people.
Full information (SP)
HUGO BLANCO, DEEP RIVER
„50 years later the maker of this visually impressive film met the legendary guerrilla leader.“
"Der schwarze Bart ist weiß geworden und die von Trotzki inspirierten jugendlichen Ansichten haben durch die Jahre im Gefängnis realistischere Konturen angenommen. All das änderte jedoch nichts an Hugos Entschlossenheit, sich jederzeit dem Kampf gegen Rechtlosigkeit und Ungerechtigkeit anzuschließen".
One World Prague
„L'image est très belle, la musique souvent extraordinaire et le personnage éminemment sympathique...“ Cinélatino". Rencontres de Toulouse
"Et si Ernesto Guevara dit le Che était encore vivant? Il aurait certainement les traits d'Hugo Blanco!" Mediapart.fr
"A superstar of the activism world in Peru, he changed the way people view politics freeing communities with his words and his spirit (...) Today he is an older man, but his spirit and his vision for a better world based on Indigenous values remain strong". ImagineNative Film Festival
"Una semblanza exhaustiva de un personaje fundamental en la política peruana, con un tratamiento fílmico que nos hace recordar que la política no está reñida con la creación cienmatográfica. Imagenes cuidadas, muy bien seleccionadas y elaboradas se conjugan con una extraordinaria banda sonora que contribuye a lograr una atmósfera amable por momentos y densa y profunda en otros, perfectamente integrada..." Francisco Adrianzén
#HugoBlancoFilm
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Original title HUGO BLANCO, RÍO PROFUNDO
English title HUGO BLANCO, DEEP RIVER
Countries & year Austria, Peru, 2019
Length 108'
Director & producer Malena Martínez Cabrera
Sound Omar Mustafá, Guido Deniro; Carlos Pino
Image Gustavo Schiaffino (dop); Carlos Sánchez Giraldo,
Aureliano Lecca, Omar Mustafá, Malena Martínez
Editing Malena Martínez , Alexandra Wedenig
Dramaturgical advice Alejandra Almirón, Dieter Pichler, Jaana Puhakka
Development Marta Andreu, Nataly Villena, Catherine Bernstein
Shooting format HD 16:9, 16mm, Mini DV 4:3 Color
Screening format Spanish: DCP, File ProRes, Blu-Ray, DVD
English, German, French: ProRes
Audio Dolby Stereo 5.1
Languages Spanish, Quechua
Subtitles Spanish, English, German, French
Project development Archidoc (MEDIA, La Fémis)
Doc Markets Agora Market, Thessaloniki Film Festival, 2019
Media Library, Visions du Réel, 2019
East Silver Market, Jihlava International FF 2018/19
Graphic designs in social media: Chris Yong-García, Juan Pablo Campana, Katya Zevallos.
DIRECTOR
MALENA MARTINEZ CABRERA
Peruvian filmmaker, photographer, and cultural journalist based in Vienna, Austria, since 2000. Master in Creative Documentary (University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 2007). Artistic Photography (Schule Friedl Kubelka, Vienna, 2014). Mag. Romanic Philology (University of Vienna, 2006). Bach. Literature and Linguistics (Universidad Católica, Peru, 1999). Mentoring program with Ruth Beckermann (FC Gloria, Vienna, 2015). ARCHIDOC alumna (La Fémis, 2015). Aristoteles Workshop (Arte TV, Romania, 2009). Cinematography WS (ESCAC, Barcelona, 2009). Music studies (Conservatorio Nacional, Lima). Member of FC Gloria (Film u. Frauenvernetzung). Member of EDN (European Documentary Network). Member of Dok.at
FILMOGRAPHY
2019 Hugo Blanco, Deep River (108’)
2017 Arcane (1’14’’)
2017 Cinco trotskistas y Hugo Blanco (6’)
2016 Diálogos que son monólogos (2’)
2015 Archetype (1’15'')
2014 Hugo Blanco y el periódico Lucha Indígena (15’)
2009 Felipe, come back (67')
2002 Ramiro en Viena (10') Special mention. Shorts on Screen. ORF.
Director's note
An intense epoch of internal war in Peru spanned my childhood and youth. The terrorist violence of the Maoists of the Shining Path was replicated by the brutal military repression. In their crossfire stood tens of thousands of indigenous peasants, the most forgotten and marginalized ones in the country. People that our racism had already faded out before the war.
The trauma left in the Peruvian population for two decades of terror (1980–2000) led many to identify now the faintest socialist impulse as a veiled communist or terrorist threat. For my generation ‚revolution’ is an ambiguous word. My generation is trying to process what happened.
After my extensive research in diverse visual archives in Peru, which depict Hugo Blanco in a sensationalist way and at the same time do not record the indigenous fights as part of the official history, I understood that my documentary film should show what is happening with the memory of the Peruvian Indigenous and Peasant struggles: it is fading out.
The Agrarian Reform, the biggest social catalyst of modern Peru is only recounted beginning with the official law created in 1969 during the military government. Indigenous fights are still labeled as subversive acts. Century after century, Indigenous peoples are erroneously interpreted as suspects and aggressors or in a passive political role or as victims. Indigenous people are still "the other", the field of projection of the countries’ own fears. My film tries to approach the perspective of the Indigenous peasant movement.
Probably my biggest challenge was not to give up telling a counter-history - “bursting history against its grain” (W. Benjamin, 1995), - despite the expectation and the advice of telling the traditional hero-story about such a charismatic leader. My character himself still works in deconstructing the imagery of messianic guerrilla fighters and advocates for self-government by the people. He says there is no need for leaders. He seeks to put in the light the past and the present epic of Indian people, who were once overshadowed by him and by the light of the revolutionary imagery not just in Peru but also in the World. As for me, making a film rather ‚in the spirit‘ than ‘about’ Hugo Blanco means activating the memory of those forgotten collective indigenous fights. I think it is necessary worldwide to re-take knowledge of those facts facing the fact that in Latin America, rural social fighters and nature guardians are being murdered and are easily criminalized, relating them to communist threats.
I work with subliminal sound and images subtly touching national taboos. I’m afraid that my country won’t find its path to the so-much-longed-for reconciliation, and it won’t heal the deep wounds of our historical memory until we don’t dare to cross the traumatic waters and shadows seeded in our collective unconsciousness.
Photo: Revela Lateinamerika / Marcela Torres
Alternative Distribution in Peru
Funded by Ministry of Culture Peru
Film funded by