This year marks the 25th edition of the Lima Film Festival, and a remastered version of the film Cholo, starring former soccer player Hugo Sotil, was chosen to open the event on Thursday, Aug. 19. This year is the second edition of the virtual festival due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cholo is one of the most-popular films in Peru in the 70's, and now it is the first Peruvian film to be remastered and restored in high quality format. The digital work was been carried out by the film and television archive of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The film directed by Bernardo Batievsky was presented with its remastered version and was followed by the inaugural talk, "Cholo: the memory of its protagonists," which was attended by filmmaker Andrea Franco, Juan Luis Pereyra, musician of the band El Polen; Violeta Nuñez, film historian; and 'Cholito' Sotil himself, soccer player and protagonist of this film.

The former soccer player participated in the film when he was still a Deportivo Municipal player, and before moving across the Atlantic to Barcelona. 

"The only thing I knew was how to kick a ball. I knew nothing about acting, but Batievsky explained to me what the script was like and I accepted," recalled 'Cholito' Sotil in a conversation with EFE.

"I had nerves, because I was not used to the cameras, but it was an enormous satisfaction. It was my first opportunity to work in the audiovisual medium."

Under the slogan “25 years of Latin cinema,” the Lima festival will present 63 films from the region between feature and short films and will hold more than 40 meetings with filmmakers. There are 33 films in official competition, of which, 15 are part of the fiction section. Another 15 are in the documentary category and three in the "Made in Peru" section, which will present three premieres of Peruvian films.