Peruvian documentary wins 1st prize at Madrid festival

Peru’s “When Two Worlds Collide” was named Friday as the winner of the 10,000euro ($11,400) first prize at the International Documentary Film Festival in Madrid.

The film portrays the 2009 confrontation between thenPeruvian President Alan Garcia and indigenous people in the Amazon who resisted a push to open their ancestral lands to multinational energy, mining and forestry companies.

The jury said it chose the AngloPeruvian coproduction, directed by Heidi Brandenburg and Matthew Orzel, for its “eloquent and poetic” reconstruction of the “unequal and unfair” struggle waged by indigenous leader Alberto Pizango.

The 5,000euro second prize went to “Les Sauteurs,” a firstperson testimony of the tragedy experienced by African migrants trying to scale the fence that separates the Spanish city of Melilla from Morocco.

The Special Jury Prize was awarded to “The Land of the Enlightened,” which depicts the “desolate and brutal” life of children in wartorn Afghanistan.