Ebelin Ortiz

Three lives in search of redemption intersect in the streets of Lima: undercover cop Gamarra’s desperate attempts to save his wife from a terminal illness gets him into trouble; bus driver Felix wants to be accepted into a religious sect after his involvement in a tragic traffic accident; and imperiled soccer club leader Narciso tries to secure his younger brother’s release from prison.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Lima, Ramón, a gay man in his thirties, receives the ashes of his estranged father. Unable to hold a funeral, he sets out to return the remains to his father’s native village of Mito. Along the way, he meets Mateo, a striking traveler grounded by the pandemic. Despite curfews, masks, and distancing, an unexpected bond forms. They dance, laugh, and grow attuned to each other’s presence, their closeness charged with quiet intimacy and unspoken possibility. As they journey into the Andean highlands, Ramón is drawn not only to Mateo but also to a deeper confrontation with grief, memory, and the hope of healing.

The story of Ernesto Pimentel’s life, raised humbly after losing his mother, inspires him to create the iconic character La Chola Chabuca, an Andean figure who captivates all of Peru with her colourful skirts and high spirits.

This third installment will tell three stories, three inseparable friends, and three reasons to sing and laugh.

In March 2020, an Argentine woman flees New York with her Peruvian husband for his family’s empty beach house outside of Lima, whereupon an unplanned pregnancy precipitates the destruction of her marriage. In the present, she rips the moments of this narrative from their context, and reconstructs her story to reckon with her profound feeling of loneliness and the experience of time in which it has trapped her.