Social unrest

It is a well-known story, multinational corporations exploiting land for their products destroying the environment and (healthy) living conditions of local populations. Such a story has been evolving in Bagua, where the government approved a law that allows the extraction of oil and gas by a major oil giant.

Oil extraction is not something that goes unnoticed. People who have been living in relatively remote areas that have little connection to greater Peru are suddenly confronted with helicopters, barges, road clearance, drilling platforms, wells and pipelines. Furthermore, oil extraction, despite of clean technology, pollutes the water and increases chances of unknown diseases to spread. In other words, people are heavily affected by the law approved in 2008 that puts their lives and the environment at risk.

In 2009 this issue led to a serious clash between the police and the native population in Bagua, which resulted in more than 30 dead people.

Radio Soap Opera

The violent and deadly climax of the conflict between the state and the indigenous people was a result of different factors. The main reasons were that governments overlook populations outside the capital city and their opinions, the mutual unawareness between societies, and the lack of information and disinformation, which made it impossible to find peaceful solutions to the problem.

Matias Vega Norell realised that awareness and communication are extremely important in avoiding such violent outbursts in the future. Radio Soap Opera intends to contribute to increasing awareness and communication through a soap opera on the radio. What makes this project special and promising is the role given to the local population in the area. The project organizers will talk and interact with regular citizens, with opinion leaders and authorities in order to know the population and its cosmovision as well as possible, giving them the means to shape the project according to the community reality and to maximize its impact.

The basic plot develops around a classical love story, set in a town in the jungle. A boy and girl are separated as children when the boy is taken to Lima by his father. Many years later he comes back to his hometown to find many things have changed and some are still the same. His hometown doesn’t look the way it used to, neither does the jungle, which causes  mixed feelings of joy and sadness. He meets the girl again who is now married to the mayor of the town and it is clear that they still have feelings for each other. The story will consist of different narrative lines related to issues such as environmental awareness, tradition versus modernity, the relation of individuals with authorities, and constitutionals rights and duties.

Matias Vega Norell

Matias Vega Norell is a social communicator and filmmaker graduated at Universidad de Lima, with media production and screenwriting studies in Columbia University (New York, USA) and Södertörns Högskola (Stockholm, Sweden). His documentary "Entre vivos y plebeyos" won best short film award in Peru´s national film festival in 2002 and was shown in different countries in Latin America and Europe. His work experience has taken him to Sweden, Denmark, USA and Greece. It includes feature film, TV, advertisement, video, photography, video installation and stage direction. He has been involved in documentary films shot in the Peruvian rain forest and has worked with Amnesty International in campaigns of social awareness.