'Manco Cápac' (Powerful Chief): Film Screening, Discussion

“Manco Cápac" ("Powerful Chief") is a minimalist film about a young internal migrant’s perseverance. Filmed in Spanish and Quechua in the southern Peruvian city of Puno, “Manco Capac” tells the story of Elisban, who arrives from the countryside with only two soles ($0.50) and a cellphone SIM card. After the job that brought him to Puno doesn't  materialize, Elisban struggles to overcome adversity in a city that is celebrating Carnival and seemingly indifferent to his plight.

The film was Peru's submission in the 2021 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film category. The film’s title is a reference to a leader who some historians say was the founder of the Incas’ first dynasty; thus it is a tribute to that indigenous empire.

Lorena Cuya Gavilano, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American cultures in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, will lead the film screening and discussion. The receipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award to Peru in 2022-2023, Cuya Gavilano examines contemporary migratory flows in the Andean region through economic, epistemological, aesthetic and decolonial lenses. She is the author of Fictions of Migration: Narratives of Displacement in Peru and Bolivia.

The event kicks off CISA's spring 2023 Humanities Lecture Series; all three spring lectures will explore the human condition through film.

"Manco Cápac," 2020 (film trailer)
Duration: 1h 32m