Indigenous people
Between 1910 and 1920, the political and literary movement known as Indigenist was born in Latin America. This movement defends the rights of the Amerindians and militates for their integration into the "national community. A cinema turned towards social concerns develops. Several works were censored, but some managed to be broadcast, such as Corazon Aymara (1926), by Pedro Sambarino, the first Bolivian fiction film, or La Gloria de la Raza (1926) in which Luis G. Castillo used optical effects and miniature models to tell the story of the decline and disappearance of the Tiahuanaco culture, or Wara Wara
(1930), by José Velasco Maidana, which dealt with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. The Chaco War, opposing Bolivia to Paraguay between 1933 and 1935, put an end to this era. Foreign sound films appeared and the local cinema died. La guerra del Chaco (1936) directed by the Paraguayan Luis Bazoberry, a black and white documentary, retraces this period of conflict between the two countries. Almost a hundred years later, Chaco (2020), a feature film by Diego Mondaca, presents a regiment of indigenous soldiers enduring the insignificance of this conflict.The Instituto Cinematografico Boliviano and the rebirth of a national cinema
The real launch of the Bolivian 7th art follows the revolution of 1952 when the Instituto Cinematografico Boliviano (ICB) was created in 1953, with the aim of promoting the government of Victor Paz Estenssoro.
In 1956, Jorge Ruiz, then director of the ICB, released Vuelve Sebastiana about the Chipaya Indians, which was praised by critics for its aesthetic and narrative rigor and the deep respect for its protagonists.
Succeeding Ruiz at the head of the ICB, Jorge Sanjinés is one of Bolivia's leading filmmakers. Among his films: Ukamau (1966), La nación clandestina (1988), Para recibir el canto de los pájaros (1995). With the scriptwriter Oscar Soria, he created the Ukamau group to support the development of Bolivian cinema, in particular through the creation of a film school and a film club
Antonio Eguinon follows the path of Sanjinés. Amargo Mar (Bitter Sea) in 1984 gives another version of the events of the Pacific War.
International films with a historical background
Among the films shot in the magnificent scenery of Bolivia, we find the twilight western Blackthorn
(2011), by the Spanish Mateo Gil, which imagines the hidden life in Bolivia of an elderly Butch Cassidy, while the official story had buried him in the same country 20 years earlier. We see in particular the Salar of Uyuni, the Altiplano, the Yungas with the famous Camino de la Muerte, the road of death, infamous for being one of the most perilous in the world.Pablo Agazzi will make you dream in the same way by presenting you two incredible characters who will leave in road trip from east to west of Bolivia, in My partner (1982). A few years later, Agazzi will take you to the department of Cochabamba, where his character Abelardo, then a radio host, will upset the daily life of the inhabitants of his village, in The day the silence died
(1998).Then, if you want to understand the reasons that motivate Bolivians to find work in the mines, you'll have to watch Antonio Eguino's The Andes don't believe in God
(2007).Directed by Bolivian director Tonchy Antezana, The Elephant Cemetery (2008), a more gloomy feature, tells the dark story of Juvenal (Christian Castillo Luna), who decides to end his life in a place popular with alcoholics in La Paz. In 2009, the filmmaker Juan Carlos Valdivia stages the decline of a bourgeois family in the Zona Sur, in his film of the same name. In Zona Sur, we enter the comfortable intimacy of an upper class family in La Paz, and examine the relationship they have with their Aymara servants, at a time when great social changes are taking place in the country. In his work Tu me manques (2019), Bolivian director Rodrigo Bellot deals with homosexuality by paying homage to a traditional father who learns of the death of his son, in Santa Cruz. The audience will then be immersed in a cultural, human and touching journey. Even the Rain
(2011) by Madrid-based director Icíar Bollaín, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, depicts the chaotic filming in Cochabamba of a blockbuster about Christopher Columbus, against the backdrop of a water war inspired by real events that took place in 1999.To give you a taste of the Amazon rainforest, Jungle (2017) tells the adventure of three travelers who will try to cross this hostile and unexplored territory. A praise to the immensity of nature. Also shot in the Amazon, on the Brazilian border of Bolivia The Lost city of Z
(2016) by James Gray, is inspired by the adventures of Percy Fawcett, a British adventurer who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, set out on the trail of an ancient civilization disappeared and a hidden city in the heart of the selva.Utama
, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, exposes the growing threat of extreme weather events related to climate change in Bolivia. Alejandro Loayza Grisi portrays a family caught in a painful dilemma: stay on their land and try to resist the forces of nature or move away. A look at the sordid and unjust realities that more and more Bolivians face every year. A must-see. Finally, in the documentary genre, Rusty Young's Wildlands (2017) and Violeta Ayala's Cocaine Prison (2017) explore the activities related to cocaine trafficking. On the creative side, Cholets: The Work of Freddy Mamani is an excellent documentary film by Brazilian director Isaac Niemand, which highlights the social, political and economic context of the "cholets," atypical buildings in the city of El Alto, and addresses the theme of reclaiming identity through art. Then, The Devil's Mine (2011), directed by Jean Queyrat, portrays the children miners who work in the bowels of Cerro Rico in Potosí, while presenting their traditions and beliefs. Finally, in Cocalero by Alejandro Landes (2007), you will follow the electoral campaign of Evo Morales before he becomes president of Bolivia.
