Fifty years after a documentary film was confiscated by a bank, the Indigenous Kuna people of Panama reclaim their story.
A French filmmaker’s promise to an Indigenous community in Panama is shattered when his documentary disappears. The Kuna people had opened their lives to be documented in 1975 but never knew that production had dried up and the film reels had been seized by a bank.
For half a century, the community searched for the lost footage as its story became a legend passed down from elders to younger generations. Decades later, decaying reels are discovered in the Panamanian Ministry of Culture, and a hidden copy of the film resurfaces in Paris. As elders recount the filmmaking process, a new generation rises to reclaim their cultural narrative.
The Lost Film of Panama is a documentary by Andres Peyrot.