Quique Avilés

As a deadly US-backed war raged in the 1980s, tens of thousands of Salvadorans made the Washington, DC, region their new home. This mass migration gave birth to a new artistic movement. Columbia Road in Adams Morgan became a hotspot of Salvadoran resettlement, where artists brought meaning to a uniquely Salvadoran-Washingtonian identity. In the process, they shaped the city’s vibrant, longstanding, and thriving cultural scene.

On May 5th, 1991, people took to the streets of Washington D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood to protest the police shooting of Daniel Gómez, a young man from El Salvador. Through testimony, song, poetry, and street theatre, La Manplesa weaves together the collective memory of one of D.C.’s first barrios and dives into the roots of the ‘91 rebellion. As people across the world take to the streets to demand an end to police brutality, the film honors the largely untold stories that have come before us, and explores how artists prompt us to remember what we still have to fight for.