"Power can oppress people in many ways," Peruvian filmmaker Sami Hauka explores Chandmori, indigenous rights, and resistance in "As Everything Falls."
What happens when the right to love who you want becomes an act of resistance? Peruvian filmmaker Sami Hauka is making As Everything Falls (Afuera Todo Arde), which explores the struggle for personal freedom under a fictional dictatorship in contemporary Peru. The story takes place in a conservative village community where two members […]
Selected for VIFF's Business Hub and Queer Palm Lab co-productions, the film explores marginalized communities and political resistance under a fictional dictatorship.
What happens when the right to love who you want becomes an act of resistance?
Peruvian filmmaker Sami Hauka is making As Everything Falls (Afuera Todo Arde), which explores the struggle for personal freedom under a fictional dictatorship in contemporary Peru.
The story takes place in a conservative rural society where two members of a polyamorous trio marry to keep up appearances. But when their relationship is revealed by their third lover, they flee to the capital, where they become involved in a rebellion against the dictatorship and realize that their struggle for personal freedom is inseparable from the struggle for indigenous rights, the rights of other marginalized communities, and economic equality. RELATED STORIES Nicolas Cage says he 'probably' won't work with Amazon again after refusing to sign AI waiver for 'Spider-Noir', sharp to join 'True Detective' 'Avatar of Chaos' ordered to series at Paramount+
The Madrid-based filmmaker's project is gaining momentum after being selected for the Vancouver International Film Festival's hub business co-production and Palm Queer Lab, an LGBT-focused development program associated with the Cannes Film Festival. Hawka is currently seeking international co-production and financing partners for the popular feature on Variety
"The film follows these characters who are in their own bubble," Hauka tells Variety. “But when they get out [of] the bubble, they realize that they have other forms of oppression beyond being queer and polyamorous, and they share these experiences with other marginalized groups.
"In this insurgency, there are many indigenous peoples and indigenous movements that need to assert their rights," Hauka says.
"When we experienced that as a culture ... it had a very strong impact on our culture and the lives we had here."
They explain that Peru has become a country that has fallen apart. These people still need a kind of citizenship in this new order that is not organized according to their needs or built on inequality.
For Hauka, this story is also an extension of their own experiences as a non-binary person with Aboriginal roots.
They spent a significant portion of their childhood in Cusco, high in the Peruvian Andes, attending an intercultural school where they learned Quechua and connected with indigenous elders and spiritual traditions. These experiences helped shape their understanding of gender and their approach to filmmaking.
"I think it helped me find a place that needed proof," they say. "It helped me look at things from the point of view that rights should be recognized and political action should start from there."
They argue that colonization and cultural cleansing have also shaped attitudes towards gender and sexuality, leaving a complex legacy that younger generations are now struggling to understand and reclaim.
"There's documentation of many places in the world where societies had more than two genders, and that kind of got erased, and now we're starting to reconnect with that," they say.
In Peru, they point to archaeological ceramics depicting same-sex encounters by shamans in sacred ritual contexts. "Now it's kind of our job to go back and try to save all these things."
For them, reconnecting with native traditions has also been a way to understand their own identity.
At the heart of the film they want to make is about how authoritarian systems limit people's ability to determine their own lives, Hauka says.
They say, “Power can make people invisible and oppress in many ways—by class, by gender, by race, by economic privilege.
Ultimately, the characters realize that their experiences of marginalization connect them to a larger struggle.
"They realize they have to join the resistance in order to be freed themselves," Hauka says. "It's like a communal thing."
The visual approach will reflect the tensions between the personal lives of the characters and the political developments around them. Hauka envisions peaceful, contemplative scenes in the countryside, with natural light and a documentary-like approach, contrasting with the noise, harsh colors, and chaos of the city. Their goal is to show “places and inhabited spaces the way they really are
The film is being produced by Peruvian production company FILMA+ as an international co-production, and casting is still open and discussions with potential producers are ongoing. They say the project has recently "taken a big leap" after development stalled.
Ultimately, Hauka says, "As Things Fall Down" uses an unconventional love story to explore how people can reclaim their freedom of self-determination and fight for what they believe in—both individually and collectively—in the face of authoritarianism and oppressive power.
They say whether it's about polygamy or homosexuality - there are too many rules imposed by power. They note that social punishment is also an "exercise of power."