Comparsa

In a Guatemalan town, two fiery sisters channel their grief and anger into a local street performance to protest against gender-based violence in the country.

In 2017, 41 young girls from a Guatemalan state-run children's home were killed in a fire when their police guards refused to release them from a locked schoolroom. The event is emblematic of the wider epidemic of gender-based violence in Guatemala, and the spark that drives sisters Lesli and Lupe to action. Told from the perspective of young women who have survived and whose lives have been shaped by violence, the film documents efforts to rally the community to collective protest through art and performance, culminating in a vivid, raucous festival through the streets of Ciudad Peronia. Conveyed through a series of sensitive portraits of girlhood and creativity, Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson’s film is an powerful ode to the plight, power and resilience of girls.

Contains discussions about ableism, language deprivation, drug abuse, domestic abuse, and sexual violence and threat