Synopsis

Ana, who´s nine years old, meets Lucho, a boy of her age, on the Christmas Eve of 1979, in the rattle and lights of the fireworks. They live in La Punta, a middle-class neighborhood in Lima next to the sea, which at that time is full of children in the streets who have dreams and illusions.

A short time later, a close friendship starts between Ana and Lucho. They love going to the beach and harbor to count the ships and boats which are leaving the port. One day, Lucho says one of these ships is going to Timbuktu. From then on, Timbuktu becomes that unknown place where perhaps it´s possible to be happy.

At that time, Ana learns how to use her father’s Super-8 and starts recording moments of her childhood, which will then become the memory of her private world.

In the late 80´s, things have changed. Ana, Lucho and all the kids of the neighborhood have become teenagers, who live in blackout and with no water, with the almost permanent terrorist attacks of the “Shining Path” and with the news of the thousands of dead people of the civil war that is taking place in Peru between the “guerrilla” and the Army. Also, they live with the terrible economical crisis that affects their families. During this time, Ana and Lucho start a romance, after being close friends for many years, having been sending each other letters with imaginary addresses in “Timbuktu”. Ana also continues filming with the Super-8 camera some important moments of their teenage life, away from reality, building with Lucho a code that only them know and share. It´s a code of creative and ludic teenagers, who constantly try to escape from an oppressive, violent and dark reality. Another way to escape is being near the sea, going by boat, imagining far away worlds. And they won´t separate until the tragic trip to the Andes a short time later.

They organize it as a “farewell trip” of the neighborhood friends, because most of them are thinking in migrating to the United States when the school finishes, legally or not. During this trip, they face the reality of their country for the first time. They travel in a bus with peasants from the Andes who can only communicate in Quechua, they must face the Andean cold weather and altitude, and finally, they will become victims, just as the peasants, of the violence of the civil war. The bus arrives to a small military control base in the middle of the Andes. Several soldiers come into the bus looking for “terrorists” and ask for documents to all the passengers. They arrest two peasants, for not having an ID. When the control reaches the group of teenagers, it turns out Lucho hasn´t got any documents with him, so he´s also arrested.

Then, in Lima, Ana abandons herself to the sadness of the disappearance and possible death of Lucho in the hands of the Army. But a short time later, she receives a phone call from his mother, who tells her Lucho has been found alive and is already at home. But she also says he has enclosed in his bedroom and doesn´t want to communicate with anybody. Lucho breaks contact with the world from this moment, without telling anyone what happened to him during the time he was arrested. He doesn´t even want to see Ana.

Some months later, Ana finally meets Lucho, although this will be the last time. In the boat where they used to dream with far away worlds, in which all types of illusions could take place, Ana tells him all the group of friends is going to the United States very soon. She tells him she´s also going away, but to Timbuktu. She begs him to come with her, but he doesn´t accept. He only wants Ana to send him letters from “Timbuktu”, as in the past, where she can tell him all about the life he has decided not to live.

Ana is really going to Spain. In the boarding room at the airport, after saying goodbye to her parents, she sees something through the window: it´s Lucho, as a child, with a Christmas flare in his hand, just as when she met him in that far away Christmas Eve of 1979.