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When Óscar Catacora’s 2017 film “Wiñaypacha” (“Eternity”) was released, it marked the first feature film to be produced entirely in Aymara, the language of the Aymara people from the Andean region. A poetic exploration of a changing world that was anchored by the beautiful vistas of that oft-inhospitable landscape, it announced the young Peruvian writer-director (barely 30 at the time) as a promising talent. Sadly, Catacora passed away in 2021 when he’d just begun production on his follow-up, “Yana-Wara.” Finished by his producing partner and uncle, Tito Catacora, the intriguing tale of justice in a small indigenous community lacks the raw lyricism of the younger Catacora’s earlier work.

“Yana-Wara” is titled after its central character, a young orphan girl who has been found dead. The question is not whether her grandfather Don Evaristo (Cecilio Quispe Ch.) has killed her. That much is clear. It’s whether his killing of his...

In November 2021, just one week into filming “Yana-Wara” in the Peruvian Andes, tragedy struck. The film’s director, Óscar Catacora, died due to health complications. But his uncle Tito Catacora, who was a producer on the film and had collaborated with his nephew on two previous movies — including “Wiñaypacha,” Peru’s Oscar entry in 2019 — stepped in to finish “Yana-Wara.”

Now, three years later, the completed film is Peru’s submission for International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. As part of TheWrap Screening Series, Tito Catacora spoke with us about the film, a black-and-white drama in the Aymara language about a 13-year-old girl, Yana-Wara, from a small indigenous community in Conduriri, El Collao, Puno, Peru. Her story was inspired by a young person Óscar and Tito Catacora had encountered in real life.

Luz Diana Mamami in “Yana-Wara” (Cine Aymara Studios)

“We live in an Andean area where we saw this girl who was … being abused.

The Indigenous-language drama Yana-Wara has sold to Exit Media in Italy for producer and sales agent Quechua Films after screening at Spain’s Malaga Film Festival this week.

Quechua, which is based in both Madrid and Cusco in Peru, is now in talks for Germany, Japan and Uruguay.

Shot in the Aymara language, the film is the story of a girl suffering abuse in a remote village in the Andes.

Co-diected by Peruvian filmmakers Óscar Catacora and Tito Catacora, Catacora died early in the film’s production aged just 34. He had previously directed Wiñaypacha (Eternity), the first Peruvian film shot entirely in Aymara,...