Viejo calavera

Elder Mamaní’s father has died, and it looks as if young Elder couldn’t care less, even though he has no one to take care of him now. He goes to live with his grandmother in the outskirts of the mining city, huanuni, where francisco, his godfather, gives him a job at the mine. But it doesn’t take long for Elder, who cares more about getting high and wandering through dangerous alleys at night, to mess it up. But he soon finds out about a dark secret regarding francisco’s involvement in his father’s death.
“Never in my life have I been so drunk as in Huanuni. Among the new friends I was making. Alcohol in the mining context is omnipresent. Be it as a familiar tradition, or as a way of becoming acclimatized to the insides of the mine. Before the miners enter the deepness of the mine, they offer alcohol to the Tio, the mine’s guardian, the devil – not the occidental devil –, in order to avoid getting the earth mad because of the roughness of the exploitation they make.
The first trips I made to Huanuni were marked by warnings about the dangerousness of the place. At nine o’clock at night, the whole town of huanuni is empty due to the fear the people have towards the gangs and the junkies that proliferate through huanuni on a daily/nightly basis. But after sharing some drinks with these “gang members”, after becoming friends with many of them, I realized that there was a great generational and class gap between the miners and the people that have been unable to work inside of the mine. This relationship is somehow also portrayed in this film.” (Kiro Russo)