The period of violence in Peru raged from 1980 to 2000. Waged between two guerrilla groups—Sendero Luminoso and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru—and state military forces, it took almost 70,000 lives. From them, 16,000 are still missing and some 6,000 mass graves remain unexcavated.

Liminal  shows an extreme close-up of a mass grave. It is the result of following the Peruvian Specialised Forensic Team in the recovery of human remains belonging to two separate cases, both from the year 1984. The scenes were recorded in the Nueva Villa Paraiso village, Huánuco, and in the Tastabamba community, Ayacucho, in November 2018.



    Commissioned and produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation.
    Produced with additional financial support from the Mondrian Fund.

    Director | Maya Watanabe
    Director of Photography | Sebastián Díaz Morales, Maya Watanabe
    Sound | German Popov, OMFO

    Special thanks:
    Dirección General de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas del Ministerio de Justicia y
    Derechos Humanos de Perú, Equipo Forense Especializado del Ministerio Público
    Fiscalía de la Nación de Perú, Comunidad de Tastabamba, Centro Poblado Nueva Villa Paraíso
    and the victims' families.
    Also to Gredna Landolt, Carmen Rosa Cardoza, José Carlos Agüero, Sofía Macher,
    Daniel Lagares, 80mts Livia Benavides gallery (PE) and Tegenboschvanvreden (NL).