Update: Comparsa wins Grand Jury Award in the International First Feature Competition at Sheffield

Comparsa just won the prestigious Grand Jury Award for the International First Feature Competition at Sheffield Film Festival. The film is directed by Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson. This competition honorps the future of non-fiction film and celebrates promising new talent and is supported by Netflix.

The jury said:

“The film that we chose celebrates the power of resilience of a community, while shedding light on an unknown story of systemic gender-based violence. It’s a film that introduces us to amazing characters, smart, sensitive, with an astonishing inner force that is an inspiration to push for change against all odds. The movie will leave us with a much needed and powerful sense of hope. The creativity, the access, the trust built with the whole community made us fall in love with a movie that opens critical conversations : come on on stage, do a dance, sing with me: COMPARSAAAAA”

This special film also won the Shine Global Children’s Resilience Award for Documentary at the festival.

From the shadows of a Guatemalan neighborhood scared into silence, two sisters lead a luminous rebellion – unleashing joy, art, and radical truth in a fight for survival.

In 2017, 41 young girls from a Guatemalan state-run children's home were killed in a fire when their police guards refused to release them from a locked schoolroom. The event is emblematic of the wider epidemic of gender-based violence in Guatemala, and the spark that drives sisters Lesli and Lupe to action.

Told from the perspective of young women who have survived and whose lives have been shaped by violence, the film documents efforts to rally the community to collective protest through art and performance, culminating in a vivid, raucous festival through the streets of Ciudad Peronia.

Conveyed through a series of sensitive portraits of girlhood and creativity, Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson’s film is a powerful ode to the plight, power and resilience of girls. Stay tuned for more screenings near you.