THE STORY – Follows an indigenous Peruvian man and his young son in their ambitious quest to fully dub Disney’s animated “The Lion King” in their native Quechua — and, in the process, protect and rescue this disappearing Peruvian language.
THE CAST – Fernando Valencia & Dylan Valencia
THE TEAM – Augusto Zegarra (Director)
THE RUNNING TIME – 81 Minutes
Approximately 10 million people in South America speak Quechua. You may never have heard of it, but the indigenous language – also known as “Runa Simi,” or “language of the people” – is the most widely spoken pre-Columbus language in the Americas. Fernando Valencia has made it his mission to use his voice to help save Quechua by posting clips of films that he has dubbed in Quechua to social media. After the clips go viral, he makes the evening news, which leads to important institutions wanting copies of the dubbed films for their libraries. Having never dubbed a whole film before, Valencia sets out to do so for his favorite film: Disney’s animated classic “The Lion King.” In order to do so, he needs a voice cast, a proper recording studio, and permission from the rights holders, the last of which is just as challenging to get as you might imagine. A classic, dyed-in-the-wool dreamer, Valencia will not let himself be deterred and pursues every possible avenue to achieve his goal. But will he be able to break through, or will his pleas fall on deaf ears?
Augusto Zegarra’s documentary “Runa Simi” sets up the stakes for Valencia’s project early on: Quechua has long been looked down upon as a language only spoken by poor people, leading many to abandon it, at least in South America’s big cities. The language is dying a slow death, which has at least been slowed down by Valencia’s “Quechua Clips.” He travels to schools to show the clips to rural kids, and their eyes brighten as soon as they hear the language. Valencia wants to dub as many films as he can, saying, “If it’s a good movie, everyone deserves to watch it.” It’s hard to disagree with that, yet despite representing a potential audience of 10 million native speakers, his voicemails and emails to the Walt Disney Company go unanswered. It is an unsurprising move from the Mouse House but a depressing one; nevertheless, it makes it exponentially more difficult for Valencia to get the funding he needs to make the dub happen, as no one wants to sponsor piracy.
One of the most impressive things about Zegarra’s approach is how tightly focused it is. Despite the dubbing having huge implications for numerous people, the film always stays focused on Valencia and his own reasons for doing this, providing strong emotional resonance. Valencia’s adorable rapport with his son Dylan, who naturally provides Simba’s voice in the Quechua dub, instantly endears you to him. Watching him direct Dylan as they record the dub in their makeshift recording studio is the most wholesome father-son moment of the year, with a father talking to his son through the emotions of the scene and exploring the feeling of a line, providing just the right amounts of both praise and criticism. Zegarra also explores Valencia’s relationship with his mother, who built the first school in their rural hometown and then worked to send him to private school to ensure a better future for him. Her deep connection to “The Lion King” itself says a great deal about the importance of both storytelling and being able to understand the language in which stories are told.
Zegarra widens his scope only once when Valencia holds an open casting call for the dub. Interviews with some of the voice cast go deeper into their experience as Quechua speakers, providing evidence of how the language is dying and why. Keeping everything personal works, tying the audience to this project, and bringing them in as a member of the family, language barrier be damned. “Runa Simi” lifts the audience’s spirits just as much as “The Lion King” does, and even if Fernando sitting Dylan down on the edge of a hillside to share some life lessons feels a bit too forced of a parallel to the animated film, at least it still has an emotional pull. Fernando Valencia is an open-hearted man who is honest to a fault, which makes him a near-perfect documentary subject. His passion for his project seeps through every frame of the film, and thanks to Zegarra’s simple, clean storytelling, you root for him all the way through, even if the film itself doesn’t take many chances with its standard, if good-looking style, Valencia’s project intrigues and enlightens more than enough to make up for that. Your move, Disney.
