Indigenous people
Between 1910 and 1920, the Indigenist political and literary movement was born in Latin America. This movement defended the rights of Amerindians and campaigned for their integration into the "national community". A cinema focused on social concerns developed. 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 uses 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 deals with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores.
The Chaco War, between Bolivia and Paraguay between 1933 and 1935, put an end to this era. Foreign sound films began to appear, and local cinema began to die. La guerra del Chaco (1936) by Paraguayan Luis Bazoberry, a black-and-white documentary, retraces this period of conflict between the two countries. Almost one hundred years later, Diego Mondaca's feature film Chaco (2020) 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 Bolivia's 7th art followed the 1952 revolution, when the Instituto Cinematografico Boliviano (ICB) was created in 1953 to promote the government of Victor Paz Estenssoro.
In 1956, Jorge Ruiz, then at the helm of the ICB, released Vuelve Sebastiana about the Chipaya Indians, hailed by critics for its aesthetic and narrative rigor and deep respect for its protagonists.
Succeeding Ruiz at the helm of ICB, Jorge Sanjinés is one of Bolivia's leading filmmakers. His films include Ukamau (1966), La nación clandestina (1988) and Para recibir el canto de los pájaros (1995). Together with screenwriter Oscar Soria, he founded the Ukamau group to support the development of Bolivian cinema, notably through the creation of a film school and a film club.
Antonio Eguinon follows in Sanjinés' footsteps. 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 Bolivia's magnificent scenery is the twilight western Blackthorn (2011), by Spaniard Mateo Gil, which imagines the hidden life in Bolivia of an elderly Butch Cassidy, even though official history had buried him there 20 years earlier. We see the Salar d'Uyuni, the Altiplano, the Yungas and the famous Camino de la Muerte, the road of death, infamous for being one of the most perilous in the world.
Pablo Agazzi's Mon partenaire (1982) will have you dreaming, too, as he introduces two incredible characters on a road trip from the east to the west of Bolivia. A few years later, Agazzi will take you to the department of Cochabamba, where his character Abelardo, a radio host at the time, will upset the daily lives of the inhabitants of his village, in Le jour où le silence est mort (1998).
Then, if you want to understand why Bolivians find work in the mines, you'll need to see Antonio Eguino's The Andes Don't Believe in God (2007).
Directed by Bolivian filmmaker Tonchy Antezana, Le cimetière des éléphants (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, filmmaker Juan Carlos Valdivia depicts the decline of a bourgeois family in 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 their relationship with their Aymara servants, at a time of great social change in the country. In Tu me manques (2019), Bolivian director Rodrigo Bellot deals with homosexuality by paying tribute to a traditional father who learns of his son's death in Santa Cruz. The audience is plunged into a cultural, human and touching journey. Madrid director Icíar Bollaín's Même la pluie (2011), starring Gael Garcia Bernal, depicts the chaotic shooting in Cochabamba of a blockbuster about Christopher Columbus, against the backdrop of a water war inspired by real events in 1999.
To give you a taste of the Amazon rainforest, Jungle (2017) recounts the adventure of three travelers who attempt to cross this hostile, unexplored territory. A tribute to the immensity of nature. Also filmed in the Amazon, on the Brazilian border with Bolivia, James Gray's The Lost city of Z (2016) is inspired by the adventures of Percy Fawcett, a British adventurer who, at the beginning of the 20th century, set out on the trail of an ancient, vanished civilization 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 phenomena linked 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 leave to live elsewhere. A look at the sordid and unjust realities faced by more and more Bolivians every year. A must-see.
Finally, in the documentary genre, Rusty Young's Wildlands (2017) and Violeta Ayala's Cocaine Prison (2017) explore the business of cocaine trafficking. On the creative side, Cholets: The Work of Freddy Mamani is an excellent documentary film by Brazilian director Isaac Niemand, shedding light on the social, political and economic context of "cholets", atypical buildings in the city of El Alto, and tackling the theme of reclaiming identity through art. Next, La mine du diable (2011), directed by Jean Queyrat, portrays the child miners who work in the bowels of Potosí's Cerro Rico, while presenting their traditions and beliefs. Finally, in Cocalero by Alejandro Landes (2007), you'll follow Evo Morales' election campaign before he became president of Bolivia.
