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Josefin grew up in Sweden hearing a family myth about how her Peruvian aunt, Augusta, died in armed struggle for poor people in Peru. Augusta La Torre created the violent Maoist guerilla Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path, together with her husband Abima

Synopsis

Josefin grew up in Sweden hearing a family myth about how her Peruvian aunt, Augusta, died in armed struggle for poor people in Peru. Augusta La Torre created the violent Maoist guerilla Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path, together with her husband Abimael Guzman. They initiated an internal war that lasted nearly 20 years and still profoundly marks Peru. Josefin defies her family and travels to Peru to find out the truth. In Peru Josefin meets Flor Gonzales. Her father was the leader of a successful peasant rebellion against the landlords in 1974. Now Flor is trying to find out what happened during her childhood and why her oldest brother was arrested and killed during the war that was started by Sendero Luminoso in 1980. Despite a disturbing conflict the two young women find common ground in a painful yet liberating search for the truth about the war and their disappeared family members in Lima and in the Andes.

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that approximately 70,000 people died or were forcibly disappeared during the country's armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. Many were victims of atrocities by the Shining Path and other armed groups; others were victims of human rights violations by government security forces. The conflict led to approximately 500,000 people being displaced. Human Rights Watch documented and exposed these atrocities in the 1980s and 1990s, including violence against women and the widespread use of torture in interrogations by security forces. Together with local human rights groups, we successfully campaigned to create a special mechanism to secure the release from prison of people who were wrongly convicted on terrorism charges. We also played an active role in the extradition of former President Alberto Fujimori to face justice in Peru for human rights crimes.

To learn more on this topic visit HRW.org

Credits

Mikael Wistrom

Director, Writer, Co-Editor

Mikael Wiström is an internationally acclaimed documentary director from Sweden. On his credit list you will first of all find a trilogy of a Peruvian family consisting of THE OTHER SHORE (1992), COMPADRE (2004) and FAMILIA ( 2010). Mikael is also a stills photographer, writer and international lecturer on documentary film.