Residents of Belén, a poor neighborhood in Peru’s Amazon region, recently had a unique opportunity to experience an international film festival right in their own community. The Muyuna Floating Film Festival, named after the Quechua word for “a whirlpool formed in mighty rivers,” showcased works from countries with tropical forests, aiming to pay tribute to the jungles of the world and their Indigenous communities.
For many attendees, this was their first time watching a movie on the big screen, as the festival organizers set up a 10-meter high wooden structure to project the films, allowing residents to enjoy them from their canoes or the windows of their homes. The festival’s co-executive director, Daniel Martínez-Quintanilla, emphasized the importance of highlighting the challenges and destruction faced by forests in the face of climate change.
The films screened at the event included works from Thailand, Brazil, Taiwan, Panama, and young Peruvian filmmakers. One of the featured films was the Peruvian animated short “The Engine and the Melody,” which tells the story of an ant and a cicada working together to regenerate the Amazonian forest.
The community of Belén, where houses and businesses are built on stilts due to regular flooding, faces numerous challenges such as malnutrition and lack of drinking water. Despite these hardships, the residents were grateful for the opportunity to connect with the stories and settings portrayed in the films, providing a brief escape from their daily struggles.
The festival served as a reminder of the power of storytelling and the importance of preserving the world’s tropical forests and the communities that depend on them. As the event came to a close, residents of Belén expressed gratitude for the chance to experience something new and inspiring in their own backyard.