29/04/2025 - César Zelada and Dirk Hampel’s animated adventure flick is a sprightly offering that, while allowing itself some poetic licence, brings Peru’s ancient culture that much closer to family audiences

A girl, fascinated by the work undertaken by the chasquis, or messengers, dreams of joining this exclusive group of men tasked with delivering messages all over the vast Inca Empire. Defying the strict gender rules and the traditions of her society, the girl will fight back against these imposed expectations and will face numerous obstacles in her desire to make her dream come true. This is, in a nutshell, the plot of Kayara. La guerrera del Imperio Inca, a 3D animated feature helmed by César Zelada and Dirk Hampel that is being released in Spain tomorrow, 30 April, distributed by Flins & Pinículas.

With a screenplay by Brian Cleveland – who has allowed himself a certain amount of poetic licence in including the presence of Spanish invaders in the action, for example – and set amidst spectacular scenery taking in the Amazon rainforest, the Atlantic Ocean, Inca temples, and Peruvian tourist attractions such as Machu Picchu and the photogenic Vinicunca, or Montaña de los Siete Colores, Kayara. La guerrera del Imperio Inca is a movie that, following in the footsteps of US animation, seeks to entertain. And that it does, thanks to a strategy of stringing together various scenes in which events continue to unfold at an unrelenting pace, serving to help our heroine (in much the same vein as the epic flicks Pocahontas, Mulan and Ainbo. Spirit of the Amazon, which was helmed by the same team as this movie) achieve her personal objective of becoming a messenger – a role that, historically, women were not allowed to assume.

The fact is that, of course, the film fuses values such as feminism, comradeship and punishment for betrayal with the expanding reach of Inca culture. And so, the heroine (or should that be “superheroine”, as she never gets injured), like so many in works of fiction, must conceal her identity and her femininity in order to make her dream come true in a sexist and discriminatory society. What’s more, appealing to the empathy of the youngest viewers, she is accompanied by a likeable and cunning pet, in this case a guinea pig native to the Andes.

As for the character design, worth highlighting are the exaggerated and rugged features of the adults, while the colour palette harks back directly to the hues used in Incan civilisation. Numerous ideas and concepts from this culture are conveyed, such as that of the chasquis, the messengers alluded to by the title of the film, who delivered the orders of the emperor – in the form of flamboyant quipus: a set of strings made of wool or cotton woven together – to the remotest corners of the territory that he ruled over. With the added involvement of singer Renata Flores, crooning the feature’s main theme in Quechua, the movie emerges as an easy form of entertainment that’s a joy to watch. While it takes little artistic risk, it is still well-paced and portrays adventures that are spectacular and predictable in equal measure.

Kayara. La mensajera del Imperio Inca is a production staged by Peruvian outfit Tunche Films and Spain’s B-Water Animation Studios.

(Translated from Spanish)