Se le moviò el piso (The Earth Moved Under Him)

A Portrait of Managua

Coral Award for “Best Non-Latin American Documentary on Latin America” at the Havana Film Festival in Havana, Cuba (1996)

Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, is the most singular city Anne Aghion encountered during a four-month long trip through Central America. To get a better grasp of the city, she crisscrossed it by bus. The shabbiness of the center creates an impression of violence. The scars from forty years of dictatorship, fifteen years of war, and the 1972 earthquake, have not yet been erased. Among the ruins of the 1972 earthquake, the Salazar theater, with its imposing thirties architecture, appears to be a huge stage. This theater — and the dozens of families that live in it — is the main subject of her film. Inside the theater as well as outside, people wander ceaselessly and aimlessly, with very little hope. Anne Aghion’s meeting with Sofìa Montenegro, a journalist and a Sandinista, was a key factor in structuring this documentary. Thanks to many hours of interviews with her, there are two points of view on the city, both subjective voice-overs. Anne Aghion’s, an outsider’s perception and hers, an insider’s description.