On May 21st, almost a year after filming began, we hosted a private primere of El fin del mundo at the Centro Cultural de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima. It was a wonderful occasion for the film crew to come together again and to share our work with members of the Yungay community and their families.
The event began with an introduction to some of the research outputs produced by Moving Mountains. We heard from the director, Alessandro Mosca, about his first visit to Yungay and the pilot work he undertook in interviewing landslide survivors. The audience had the opportunity to watch unseen footage of people describing their experiences of the disaster. This material informed the fictional script that Mosca would later write for El fin del mundo.
Both adult protagonists of the film — Juana Jiménez and Jorge Flores — were invited to reflect on their own real, lived experience of surviving the landslide in 1970 and on their roles in The End of the World. Juana and Jorge made a special journey from Yungay to Lima to participate in the event and watch their production on the big screen.
Two young representatives of Yungay, Lucero Linero and Karla Ángeles, gave their perspective on what it meant for their generation to remember the disaster and how the film interacts with this collective memory. They shared their reflections on working with the film crew and how it felt to see their town on screen.
We held a moment’s silence in memory of the disaster victims before watching El fin del mundo, making for an intimate viewing experience with the people who made the film and the people who lived through the events that it depicted.
The evening ended with a drinks reception and the opportunity for audience members to share their responses with us.
