Film REVIEW: Runa Simi (2025) - ★★★★★

Mix Up Theatre (Stewart)
10 hours ago
2 min read

Director: Augusto Zegarra

Genre: Documentary

A Peruvian father and son work to dub "The Lion King" into Quechua, striving to preserve their endangered indigenous language.

MIX UP REVIEWS:

Olivia (Age 13) - ★★★★

"The Runa Simi lion king documentary was a great day out! It's about a father and son trying to get the rights to dub the lion king to Quecha.

I thought the documentary was great, I wished we had gotten to see the actual lion king dubbed but they couldn't get the rights so it's understandable.

The camera work was out of this world, I would really like to know what camera they used as all of the documentary was beautiful

We learnt some Quechua and sang with Mercedes. It was a fun experience, 4 stars"

Archie (Age 13) - ★★★★1/2

"I thought it was a really interesting documentary with a fascinating concept which is dubbing the lion king into Quechua. The man asked Disney if they could dub the lion king and Disney has not still not responded to this day.

There were also parts of the documentary where he talks to his son about it and teaches his son the songs. At the end they put on their dubbed version of the lion king for their community. It was really unique and I feel I learned a lot"

Maddie (Age 11) - ★★★★1/2

"One of my friend’s from my basketball was there and I now know her mum speaks Quechua!"

Stewart - ★★★★★

"The documentary is a beautiful promotion of indigenous culture and language. The father son relationship is lovingly shared and it's a compelling theme of following your dreams. Fun to see the voice actors at work as well working on The Lion King dubbing.

There was something quite fitting and poetic about seeing a wild fox walking the streets of a bustling Edinburgh city as we were on our way to the cinema.

Hackucha Manayta."

Have you seen it?

Mix Up Theatre Movie Chart Position: #12

We went along to the Runa Simi showing at the Filmhouse Edinburgh which included a song workshop afterwards singing Hakuna Matata into Quechua