Arena — Season 1, Episode 485: Relics: Curse of the Firebeetle
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
A film drama set against civil war in Peru. When Ortiz, a professional graverobber, stumbles across the huge golden disc of the ancient sun god Atahualpa lost for years, he sets off for Lima where he hopes to sell it for a high price. Chained to the shield, he looks like a giant firebeetle as he crosses the dramatic mountains in Peru pursued by characters with a special interest in the shield. Spurred on by greed, Ortiz's fate becomes inextricably linked to that of the sun god.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.