The Tiniest Place

Two decades after the civil war in El Salvador came to an end, survivors return to their devastated mountain village. A beautifully stylised documentary about the power, courage and high spirits of people that lost everything, and about their capacity to build up a new life while singing and working.

In the heart of El Salvador’s moist rainforest lies the village Cinquera. Footage of green valleys, mountain tops wrapped in mist and listlessly ruminating cows gives this place a mystique yet peaceful character. Children play among the chicken scratching about in the streets. Life has now returned to Cinquera, but twenty years ago it was a desolate place, a war-ridden ghost town that literally disappeared from the official records for years. During the civil war, which shook El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the village was earmarked by the authorities as a hotbed of guerrilla fighters that had joined the opposition. Popular resistance was violently crushed and thousands of lives were lost in the war, and an even greater number disappeared without ever being found. Director Tatiana Huezo beautifully documents how survivors of the tragedy in Cinquera cope with their traumas and commemorate their loved ones, while attempting to rise from their ashes.