Peruvian documentary is haunting and yet hopeful
‘Uyariy,’ which means ‘listen’ in Quechua, will receive international release in late 2026
"Uyariy" (which means “listen” in Quechua) is a haunting and yet hopeful documentary by Javier Corcuera that denounces ongoing and historical state repression of indigenous peoples in Peru, focusing on the victims of the Juliaca massacre that took place on Jan. 8, 2023.
Released in major theaters across the capital of Lima on the third anniversary of the massacre, the documentary has received widespread praise for its beauty, accuracy and historical relevance while also overcoming failed attempts of censure. Using powerful firsthand testimonies, entrancing Andean music and astonishing cell phone footage of the events that took place that day, Uyariy not only provides ample evidence of Peruvian state violence used against its citizens, it also serves as a beautiful homage to the 18 lives that were taken in one day. Watch the trailer here.
Central to the telling of what happened and the honoring of the lives lost are the families of the 18 victims of Juliaca, an indigenous town located in the Puno region of the southern Andes of Peru. Among the family members who play a prominent role in the documentary is 28-year-old Milagros Samillan, a Young Adult Volunteer in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) whose brother Marco Antonio was shot in the back and killed by the national police.
“My first reaction upon watching the documentary was pain,” Samillan said. “For all of us family members whose loved ones were killed, we were reliving what happened that 8th day of January three years ago.”
In the weeks following the impeachment and imprisonment of Peruvian President Pedro Castillo in December of 2022, who himself is of rural and Andean descent, the more indigenous identifying parts of the country who saw themselves in Castillo rose up in protest. To squash the protests, the newly installed president, Dina Boluarte, authorized the use of force by national police and military. Over the course of three months, 49 Peruvians would be killed by the state. But it was the killing of 18 people in one single day in Juliaca that brought to light the repressive tactics the government used against its own people.
“My brother Marco was not even there to protest. He was a medical doctor, and he was there to help protestors who may get hurt,” Samillan said. “The police actually shot him in the back while he was trying to help someone else.”
With defiance, she added, “the importance of this documentary for us— the families — is to show the evidence of what really happened that day and what has been happening for centuries to the indigenous areas of our country. It does not have to be this way.”
The documentary also provides space for older survivors of the Juliaca massacre to retell events of past massacres and assassinations of the indigenous peoples in the land, contending that the primary reasons for such suppression are to occupy their land and to keep the indigenous peoples uneducated, poor and powerless.
The hope for those who watch this documentary, according to Samillan, “is that justice can be achieved; that the people hear and see the truth of what happened — the version that the government wants to hide.”
The pursuit of justice for her brother and for the families of all who lost loved ones in the Juliaca massacre is what has driven Samillan over the past three years. In the days following the massacre, the families organized themselves with the goal of revealing the truth and holding the Boluarte government accountable for the killings. In this pursuit, Samillan was named a principal spokesperson for the families, often appearing in the news and at protests.
After a year of speaking out, Samillan confessed that she and the families lacked the support of civil society to continue their fight. It was during this time, at a march being held in Lima, that Samillan met the leadership of the Evangelical Association of Theological Education, a key partner organization of the Young Adult Volunteer program. In this encounter, Samillan was encouraged to apply for the YAV program so that she could serve in Lima and continue the pursuit of justice. In July of 2024, Samillan was welcomed into the YAV program.
Joining the program was “a decision I took with both fear and hope in my heart. Fear, because it would be the first time to live outside of Juliaca and away from my family. Hope, because of the possibilities. Over the past year and a half, I have learned new cultures and met many new people. I have also had the opportunity to tell the story of what happened to my brother to people who would not have known the truth. In this way, I have grown as a person.”
Samillan most recently confirmed her next steps beyond her two-year YAV experience in Lima. She will be running for Congress in the 2026 national elections in order to represent the people of Juliaca in the Peruvian parliament. As she says, “the fight for justice continues.”
As for Uyariy, it will be coming to international audiences later this year.
The Rev. Jed Koball is a PC(USA) Global Ecumenical Liaison serving in Peru.
You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.
