La Churunga Films

Emilia, a young widow, is traveling by river to Islandia with her young daughter, Irina, in the 1950s. Because the river is low, they are stranded in Santos, a small town in the Peruvian Amazon. The time they spend there is enough to change the course of their lives. Emilia is the first teacher the town has had. Fifty years later, her legacy remains.

Red Soil is an experimental feature-length documentary that explores the tension between life and predation in the Peruvian Amazon. Through a poetic lens, the film portrays how Amazonian societies confront the exploitation of their territories and the encroachment of modern modes of production, while foregrounding the forest’s vitality and the enduring wisdom of Indigenous nations.