Human Rights Week: Zona Intangible

Zona Intangible shows how a single act of generosity can ripple forward and backward through time, improving health and well-being in a community founded on nothing but resilience and hope.

Refugees fleeing the Shining Path terrorists build a new city called Manchay on the edge of Lima, Peru. A gift from an American family funds construction of the city’s first modern health clinic, inspiring other donors to send medical supplies. Against great odds, the clinic has thrived for 13 years.

Award-winning writer-director Ann Hedreen traces the unlikely connection between the people of this asentamiento humano (human settlement), and her great-uncle, a Swedish-American pioneer of the Peruvian fishing industry. The film introduces a network of teachers, volunteers, medical professionals– and one very determined priest– who help these refugees carve a new life from an abandoned gravel pit in one of the world’s most sprawling megacities.

With an estimated one-sixth of the world’s population now living in settlements like Manchay, Zona Intangible portrays the challenges facing one such community, and the complex ties between their future and a benefactor they never met.