An old photograph of two Indigenous Peruvians catches the eye of director Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski. In the early 20th century, they were taken to London to be “civilized.” Little is known about them beyond their names – Omarino and Aredomi. Sadowski digs deeper into the past, placing their personal histories under her poetic microscope. The Memory of Butterflies deconstructs the official version of history written by extractivist bureaucrats in service of the colonial rubber trade that spread across Latin America at the turn of the 20th century. In the director’s approach, black-and-white and hand-colored Super 8 footage – shot and processed by hand – alternates with meticulously researched and carefully collected archival film and historical photographs that she reworks and examines.
Fragments of a grand but insidious colonial project are reassembled into an emancipatory counter-history in which the director reflects on her own position – not only as a filmmaker, but also as someone entangled in the complicity of both her immediate and distant kin. What sets this film apart from other archival undertakings is the liberating gesture of sharing the photograph with present-day Indigenous Peruvians – descendants of Omarino and Aredomi – and incorporating their impressions and interventions into the film itself. The forgotten and silenced stories of a generation devastated by the economic rise of the rubber trade are, through this cinematic incantation, returned to their descendants. This act of endorcism has a healing effect on Indigenous Peruvians, opening space for their spirit guides to transmit messages from the sacred world – offering a break from official memory. (Dina Pokrajac)
Awards and Festivals:
Berlinale Forum (2025) – FIPRESCI Prize, Special Mention; International Film Festival of Uruguay – Best Ibero-American Film
Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski is a Peruvian director whose work sits at the intersection of experimental and documentary cinema, exploring the topics of memory, colonial histories, and collective healing. She studied performing arts in Peru and film and new media at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Her previous films have been screened at festivals including Doclisboa, Oberhausen, and Art of the Real. The Memory of Butterflies is her first feature-length film and the latest in a series of archival and storytelling explorations of Indigenous traditions.
