Pirsas

In 2006 a group of 11 boys in the PIRSAS scout troop were tragically killed by a landslide during a hike up the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in the Andes.

Amongst their number was the 12-year-old Junior, whose death left behind his parents and a younger sister; a family rent apart by their pain. 16 years later, Angelica Maria Torres Tamayao’s film charts her decision to undertake the very same hike that her brother was never able to complete, to Cerro Guali on the slopes of Nevado del Ruiz. Accompanied by her mother, the walk is an act of pilgrimage and reclamation, and Tamayo’s film weaves together footage of this with an epistolary examination of long-fingered damage caused by overwhelming grief.

The film opens with a reflection on the filmmaker’s first encounters with death – in the form of Junior’s various hamsters which were quickly and quietly replaced by their father. To that child, death was something easily repairable and so she struggled to even comprehend the horror that befell the family when they lost their firstborn son. Tamayo’s mother, Alma, could not stay and her father found it impossible to process his sorrow.

That barrier still exists; despite being asked to undertake the walk with her, he declined. Instead, mother and daughter travel together, discussing the lasting impact that the loss has had on them as individuals and their relationship. The hike is captured in fairly unobtrusive verité fashion, with cinematographer Sebastian Contreras following the pair on the journey and observing moments of intimate kinship and private reflection.

In amongst this footage, Tamayo presents various archival materials – some home movie footage, and photographs of her and Juniors as kids – along with a narration directed at her brother. Through this, she manages to make a film that is deeply specific to the heartrending nature of her loss, as a child left to find their own way through grief to understanding. However, Pirsas is also a profoundly empathetic work that wrestles with a universal element of the human condition – what it means to be one of those left behind, and how important it is to find personal and collective solace.

Director, screenplay: Angelica Maria Torres Tamayo
Producers: Angelica Maria Torres Tamayo, Jaime E. Manrique
Cinematography: Sebastian Contreras
Editing: Valeria Gonzalez Paternina, Angelica Maria Torres Tamayo
Sound: Jaime E. Manrique
Distribution: Bogoshorts Film Agency (Colombia)
Venue: San Sebastian Film Festival (Nest)
In Spanish
20 minutes