DIRECTED BY PAMELA YATES
PRODUCED BY PACO DE ONIS
EDITED BY PETER KINOY
USA / PERU 2005 • 94 MINUTES
IN ENGLISH & SPANISH
WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
SKYLIGHT PICTURES, INC.

PLUS

THE MONTESINOS MEDIA BUY

7 MINUTES
PRODUCED BY SKYLIGHT PICTURES, INC.

“Peru’s sordid 20-year cycle of violence and corruption provides a disquieting mirror of the current conflicts in the Middle East. This edifying new documentary makes the parallel explicit... The film offers a balanced view of the atrocities... STATE OF FEAR presents a troubling chronicle of the “war on terror’ and the all too-familiar ways that countries bungle it.”
– Anthony Kaufman, Time Out New York

“A brilliant and moving film, which is both a portrait of Peru and a chronicle of terror and response - fanaticism, bravery, heroism, abject fear and the way everyone is affected by such events. It is what Orwell called the aim of great art, which was both imaginative in craftsmanship and politically committed at its heart.”
– Paul Theroux, Author

FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS, PAMELA YATES, PETER KINOY AND SKYLIGHT PICTURES HAVE SET A GOLD STANDARD for elegant, intelligent, hard-hitting documentaries on Latin America, films that include the Oscar-winning WITNESS TO WAR.

In STATE OF FEAR the spectacular beauty of Peru is juxtaposed with the disturbing revelations of that nation’s Truth Commission detailing a 20-year reign of terror. It began in 1980 with the violent Maoist guerrilla cult, Shining Path, whose bloody doings were met with equal violence from Peru’s democratically elected government. Once the terrorists were subdued, fear of their return was used as an excuse by President Alberto Fujimori to institutionalize absolute power and propagate corruption. The film, however, transcends its immediate subject to become a cautionary tale of our current global war on terror. The Commission found that Fujimori’s response increased the nation’s crisis by exacerbating the cycle of violence, and that terrorism is best fought with more democracy, not less.

THE MONTESINOS MEDIA BUY, a short film produced by Skylight Pictures for this engagement, is based on surveillance video, shot by Fujimori henchman Vladimiro Montesinos, showing a rogues’ gallery of Peruvian media executives parading through his office to collect bundles of U.S. dollars in exchange for favorable press coverage of Fujimori. Over 2,000 hours of such footage exists and clips broadcast on Peruvian TV essentially destroyed Fujimori’s credibility.

Film Forum will premiere Ellen Perry’s THE FALL OF FUJIMORI on January 18, the story of Fujimori’s rise and fall from his perspective.

Links:

• Skylight Pictures
• View the trailer
• Listen to inteview of STATE OF FEAR Director Pamela Yates and THE FALL OF FUJIMORI Director Ellen Perry on the Leonard Lopate show:
  • Streaming [RealPlayer]
  • Download mp3
• International Center for Transitional Justice

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