Punku
15
Why watch?
“A potent sense of people and place is combined with a restless aesthetic which blends different analogue and digital formats along with shadow puppets and stop-frame animation - all in the service of a fever dream with dark undercurrents which pulls you along remorselessly. Punku's achievement is in crafting something so personal and specific into a tale which can travel anywhere.”
Ian Francis,
Flatpack Festival Director
Deep in the Peruvian Amazon lowlands, Meshia, a Matsigenka Indigenous teenager, discovers Ivan, a young boy who vanished two years ago and was presumed dead. Determined to save him, she embarks on a journey upriver into the mountains, heading to the city of Quillabamba. Ivan urgently needs eye surgery to halt an infection threatening his sight.
As a withdrawn Ivan struggles with the trauma of his mysterious past and haunting dreams, Meshia becomes mesmerized by the city's allure. Fueled by ambition and fragile illusions, she enters a local beauty pageant. Despite Ivan's silence, an uncanny bond grows between them. But when a stranger with sinister intentions emerges, their inner worlds and their fragile connection are put at risk.
Shot on a mix of 16mm, Super 8, and digital formats, Punku, meaning 'gateway' in Quechua, is a hybrid fiction film that blurs the boundaries between the seen and unseen, offering a portal into overlapping realities and dimensions.
This screening will be followed by a live Q&A with director J.D. Fernández Molero.