Orgun Wagua

In 1975 French Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Pierre Dominique Gaisseau traveled to Panama to make a film on the indigenous island-dwelling Kuna people. Accompanied by his wife and their daughter, Gaisseau lived with the Kuna for a year, gaining their trust and filming their most intimate ceremonies. He promised to share the resulting film with the community, but that never happened. Fifty years later, the Kunas are still waiting to discover “their” film, now a legend passed down from the elders to the new generation. One day, a hidden copy is found in Paris…While uncovering this fascinating story with humility and warmth, Swiss-Panamanian filmmaker Andrés Peyrot succeeds in capturing a true sense of culture and place. The result is simultaneously a cautionary tale raising questions around how and why documentaries are made and for whom, and a testament to the power of what it means to see yourself on the big screen.

The life of General Victoriano Lorenzo, of indigenous descent, guerrilla fighter from the One Thousand Day War, shot by a firing squad of the oligarchy before the birth of Panama as a Republic and the building of the Canal by the North Americans in 1903, is reconstructed through several characters who know his history, life and myth. An indigenous painter, an indigenous chief, a peasant, a violinist, a singer of rhymes and a former guerrilla fighter talk to us about the life of our Transparent Hero, as we delve into their worlds of daily struggle in a country that is proud of its economic growth and gradually seeks to eliminate the memory of its people. These are stories that are weaved to highlight the figure of Victoriano Lorenzo through the imagination that creates time in the self-image of Panamanians amidst memories, versions and contradictions.