Peru’s Minister of Culture has announced today that Wiñaypacha, the debut feature by Óscar Catacora and the first Peruvian fiction film entirely in the indigenous Aymara language, will represent the South American country both at the Academy Awards and in Spain’s Goya Awards.
Winner of the awards for Best First Film and Best Cinematography at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Wiñaypacha (which means eternity in Aymara) tells the story of an elderly Aymara couple, Willka y Phaxsi, struggling to survive in a remote part of the Andes as they wait in vain—5,000 meters above sea level—for the return of their son Antuco, who left them behind to move to the city.
Peru has been submitting Oscar candidates intermittently since 1967, and it received its first and only nomination in 2009 for The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa.
