HUAQUERO
A film by Juan Carlos Donoso Gómez
(Ecuador/Peru/Romania, 2024, 78 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Amid the coastal landscapes of Ecuador and Peru, the debut feature by Juan Carlos Donoso Gómez reconstructs the fragmented memories of former huaqueros—artifact hunters who participated in the illegal excavation and trade of pre-Hispanic objects. Blending documentary and fiction through dramatic reenactments and firsthand testimonies from looters, archaeologists, and counterfeiters, the film explores the tensions between ancestral knowledge, heritage crime, and the enduring wounds of colonialism. Exquisitely shot on washed-out 16mm film evocative of vintage travelogues, Huaquero brushes away the dirt of memory to uncover competing versions of truth while remaining deeply rooted in the local perspectives of the communities whose histories have long been excavated, sold, and erased. A meditation on territory, belonging, and memory, the film excavates the fragile line between truth and fiction, authenticity, and forgery, reclaiming the contemporary Andean world as a living, contested landscape still haunted by the legacy of colonialism.

Wednesday, July 15, 7pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. (at 2nd St.), New York City