In celebration of the World Premiere of Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson’s Comparsa at Sheffield DocFest, Guatemalan artists and documentary subjects Lupe Pérez and Lesli Canales Pérez will be outside the Crucible in Tudor Square on Thursday, June 19th, for a vibrant street performance, accompanied by batucada beats from local musicians Stilt Batteristas from 7pm to 8pm.
In a Guatemalan barrio silenced by fear, two teenage sisters lead a luminous rebellion—unleashing giant puppets, fire, and artful performance to protest gender violence in a joyful fight for survival.
Comparsa fully immerses audiences in the intense world of Ciudad Peronia, Guatemala, where sisters Lesli and Lupe use art and performance to rally local youth and heal deep wounds. After 41 girls are killed in a State-run “Safe Home” and the government refuses to act, the sisters respond with a community comparsa—an exuberant street performance featuring towering puppets, fire-breathing stilt walkers, and thundering drums. With brave vulnerability, they expose a power structure that permits and commits violence against women, and they open up about surviving violence in their own homes.
Their youth movement takes to the streets, confronting corruption and reclaiming public space for women and girls. Rooting their efforts in joy and community care, they find healing for themselves along the way. Comparsa is built on a 15-year relationship between the subjects and the film team to offer a stirring portrait of sisterhood, peacebuilding, and the transformational power of art.
Speaking ahead of the Sheffield DocFest premiere, director Vickie Curtis said, “My lifelong fascination with characters and story structure was honed in the theatre and landed me in the world of documentary film writing. After a decade of writing films such as The Social Dilemma and Searching For Amani, I developed a craving for human-centered stories that could offer clues for addressing the pressing crises we face. In Comparsa, I see young people finding a fundamentally different way to organise the community, prioritise wellbeing, heal, and rebuild together. To embody these values, I’m taking a deliberate, collaborative approach to making this film.
Comparsa is born from personal connection and a shared theory of change. My co-director Doug Anderson and I met decades ago, as kids in a youth theatre program that pushed us to question the status quo and embrace self-expression as resistance. During that program, we became fast friends with Comparsa’s producer, Anna Hadingham. Anna moved to Guatemala in 2007 and began working alongside our film’s subjects, learning to produce raucous public performances as a method for grassroots organising. After nearly a decade of hearing about Anna’s exceptional artist collaborators in Guatemala, Doug and I decided to go to Peronia and see for ourselves”.
The World Premiere of Comparsa takes place at Sheffield DocFest on Saturday, June 21st, at 8:45pm at Curzon Sheffield. Book Tickets.
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