Runa Simi

Synopsis: In South America, there are 10 million people who speak Quechua, but no film has ever been dubbed into this language. Fernando Valencia, a radio announcer and freelance voice actor, wants to change this and first embarks on a small project called Quechua Clips. With the help of his son Dylan, he dubs scenes from famous films into Quechua and uploads them to the internet so that millions of Quechua speakers can enjoy these fragments of cinematic magic. 

But Fernando's big dream is to completely dub the animated film The Lion King, his all-time favorite. The big obstacle is that he needs to get the go-ahead from the Walt Disney Company. Runa Simi, the first feature-length documentary by Augusto Zegarra, winner of the Best New Documentary Director Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Youth Jury Award at Sheffield DocFest 2025, is a deeply moving testimony that cinema, in addition to entertaining, can also inspire audiences to change the world. To the rhythm of “Hakuchu Munayta,” the Quechua translation that Fernando chooses to call “Hakuna Matata,” Runa Simi offers a solution for preserving endangered languages: dubbing as a tool of resistance.