The Portland EcoFilm Festival’s
Global Ecological Cinema Podcast
Episode Eight: RUNA SIMI with Augusto Zegarra & Fernando Valencia Saire
Release Date: June 6, 2026
Contains no spoilers and is appropriate for people of all ages
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Fernando Valencia Saire is a talented voice actor and movie lover from Peru. Together with his son, Dylan, Fernando is on a quest to dub Disney's THE LION KING into Quechua, his mother tongue and the most spoken Indigenous language in the Americas.
Augusto Zegarra's heartwarming and beautifully crafted documentary, RUNA SIMI, follows Fernando and Dylan through the cities, villages, mountains, and fields of Peru as they dream and do their best to make this beloved classic accessible and more relevant to millions of Quechua speakers.
Still from the film RUNA SIMI
We sat down with Augusto and Fernando to discuss the nuances of translation, linguistic ecology, media sovereignty, the gifts that Indigenous languages offer the world, and more.
Augusto Zegarra
RUN SIMI is an Official Selection in our Indigenous Voices series, and it won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2026 Portland EcoFilm Festival
Film Recommendations
Augusto’s film recommendations from this episode are:
LA HIJA DE LA LAGUNA | DAUGHTER OF THE LAKE (2015 | Dir. Ernesto Cabellos)
WIÑAYPACHA | ETERNITY (2017 | Dir. Óscar Catacora)
THE TERRITORY (2022 | Dir. Alex Pritz)
REMAINING NATIVE (2025 | Dir. Paige Bethmann)
WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE (2016 | Dirs. Mathew Orzel, Heidi Brandenburg) is available to rent at the world’s best video store, Movie Madness, in Portland, Oregon.
Fernando Valencia Saire
Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket.
Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by Rozzell Medina.
The Portland EcoFilm Festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre, Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliates.