Warmi : the first Peruvian women-led film collective

Abstract

Warmi Cine y Video, the first group of Peruvian women filmmakers, was founded in Lima in 1989. They released their last work in 1998. The 1990s were an agitated period in Peru. The totalitarian drift of the state, under a de facto dictatorship headed by Alberto Fujimori, created an asphyxiating atmosphere. Political agendas focused on the bloody internal armed conflict (1980-2000). In that troubled context —without ignoring it but determined to highlight what did not make the headlines— this collective, led by María Barea, managed to make a series of films that constituted a new kind of discourse in Peru due to their ability to mettre-en-scène the lives of unacknowledged lower class women.