The Grupo de Cine Liberación sin Rodeos (Liberation without Detours Film Group) was founded in 1972 in Cusco, Peru, by Pedro Neira, Raúl Gallegos, Marcela Robles and Carlos Ferrand. Nené Herrera joined the group in 1974. They make their films together, each person doing a bit of everything (camera work, sound, editing, etc.), and the works they produce are thus in tune with the country's political currents. The revolutionary military government led by Juan Velascos Alvarado (1968-1975) introduced a number of social and economic reforms that the collective addressed.

Through cinematic explorations ranging from activism to a more impressionistic and fictional approach, the social and political intentions of Grupo de Cine Liberación sin Rodeos are unmistakable. Their works create radical, poetic representations of the cultural, social, political and economic realities of several regions of Peru, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Divided into two programs, the four short films by Grupo de Cine Liberación sin Rodeos presented during the festival remain little-known in Quebec and elsewhere. One of them, Una Película sobre Javier Heraud, has never been released. Mecanicos piratas del Lima, a work by Carlos Ferrand filmed in the same era and completed in 2022, is also part of the program.

This retrospective will be screened with Carlos Ferrand present. The filmmaker has lived in Quebec since the early 1980s and worked with us to develop this retrospective. The context of the works' production will be explained and their content discussed in light of the current situation in Peru and the rest of the world. These films also invite us to reexamine how we collectively perceive the relationship between social activism and cinema.

- Hubert Sabino-Brunette