The Memory of Butterflies

At the end of the 19th century, the Amazon region saw the outbreak of a “rubber boom”, which was inspired by the utilization of the sap of the rubber tree in Europe. Rubber, one of Peru’s most important export products, brought not only money to the state and rubber companies, but also a wave of colonialism and slavery, even genocide, to the jungle.

The Memory of Butterflies, which premiered at the Berlinale, is Peruvian director Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski’s debut feature film. While going through the (propaganda) archives of the mining company Casa Arana, Sadowski came across a photograph of two indigenous young men dressed in Western manner and holding hands. In the details of the photograph was mentioned only London, the year 1911 and the names Omarino and Aredomi. The photograph kept bothering the director, so she decided to embark on a journey to find who were those young men.

The film combines archival material recorded in the early part of the last century with footage captured on Super 8 film by Sadowski and Isabel Madueno Medina, who was the second cinematographer. The grainy images are accompanied with a soundscape consisting of the narrator and the sounds of a rainforest with its animals.

The Memory of Butterflies dismantles the official historical narrative of Latin America during the colonial period at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It constructs counter-history for the colonial project by revealing hidden archives and distortions. The film’s hypnotic atmosphere provides a counterbalance to the time travel through Peru’s somewhat gloomy history which also touches on the director’s own family and position as a filmmaker.

Joonatan Nikkinen (translated by Sabriina Hietaniemi)