Based on the testimony of more than 16,000 people to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the film begins with the rise of the Maoist leader Abimael Guzmán, leader of Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, and culminates in the collapse of President Alberto K. Fujimori's government in November 2000. Between those events lie an estimated 70,000 dead and untold numbers scarred for life. Within an atmosphere of desperation and chaos, Alberto Fujimori won the presidency, later dissolving Congress, maintaining his grip on power by continuing to raise the specter of terrorism, generating a phobic public response to a threat that, after 1992, was no longer there. Like many before him, Fujimori used real and invented threats to consolidate his power--enthusiastically supported by most of the populace--until his despotic, operatically corrupt regime finally imploded.