This screening and Q&A is presented in collaboration with CinemaAttic, as part of Resonating Moving Images, a Peruvian-Scottish initiative organised by Verónica Zela, Sara Guerrero and Ximena Oñate. The programme explores mining and resilience through public screenings, scholar talks, and workshops. Supported by the University of Edinburgh’s Student Experience Grant.
Bringing together Choropampa (2002) and Peru (1932), two films separated by seventy years yet bound by a shared question: who pays the true cost of extraction?
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ernesto Cabellos and Peruvian anthropologist Sandra Rodríguez. This event is free, but booking is required.
📅 Saturday 16th May
🕢 Doors open at 7:00 p.m
📍 Edinburgh Film Society
🎟️ Free entry!
The programme:
Peru (Eastman Classroom Films — USA/UK, 1932, 14′)
Produced as part of a series of educational films in the 1920s and 1930s, this silent short presents Peru through its resources, its industry, and its people — moving from archaeological sites to railways, seaports, and mining operations. A document of its time, it reveals how extractive economies shaped the way an entire country was seen and presented to the world. Notably, this is one of the first films acquired by the Scottish Central Film Library upon its establishment in 1939.
Choropampa: El Precio del Oro (Ernesto Cabellos & Stephanie Boyd — Peru, 2002, 52′)
On the afternoon of 2 June 2000, the life of Choropampa — a small village of 1,200 inhabitants in the Peruvian Andes — changed dramatically. A truck from the Yanacocha gold mine spilled 150 kilograms of mercury along 40 kilometres of road, most of it through the village itself. What began as a minor accident soon became national news and a serious threat to local residents. Over the following two years, the people of Choropampa fought to obtain justice and medical assistance, facing powerful interests at every turn. A chronicle of resistance, and of the true cost of gold.
Accessibility:
Entry to the venue is at the bottom of a short flight of steps