Once Upon a Time in Bolivia

Our Brand Is Crisis

Based on the documentary "Our Brand Is Crisis", this feature focuses on the use of American political campaign strategies in South America.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.

The River

An introvert city teenager is sent to his father's limber ranch. While trying to figure out his place as the son of the boss he finds himself in a world packed with naturalized violence.

Utama

In the Bolivian altiplano, Virginio and Sisa, an elderly Quechua couple who have lived a quiet life for years, face an impossible dilemma during an unusually long drought: resist or be defeated by the hostile environment and the relentless passage of time.

My Partner

The story of the friendship between a truck driver and a shoeshine boy who occasionally becomes his assistant when they travel together from the agro-industrial area of Santa Cruz to the high Andean basin of La Paz in a truck named "Mi Socio".

Cielo

Santa, an eight-year-old girl from the desolate Bolivian Altiplano, embarks on a rollercoaster journey to take her mother from a life of misery into paradise. The two of them made a pact: when her mother passes, the girl would follow the stars and carry her body across the desert toward heaven, a place they are certain is physically real. Crossing the wilderness, Santa encounters a group of female wrestlers that help her on her way. Also, a gruff policeman who arrests Santa but soon suspects she has magical powers. He decides that to achieve his own salvation he must join Santa on her quest beyond the horizon.

Blood of the Condor

A community reacts against a group of foreigners who under the guise of development assistance are forcibly sterilizing the peasant women.

Women Talking

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.

American Visa

After being denied an American visa, a Bolivian professor becomes involved in a web of criminal activities, holds-up the American consulate and falls for a beautiful prostitute from the Bolivian lowlands.

Tempestad en la Cordillera

A Matter of Faith

Cuestión de fe es un largometraje producido en Bolivia en 1995, dirigida por Marcos Loayza. En esta película participa Jorge Ortiz y Elías Serrano. La película trata de una imagen sagrada que debe ser trasladada por encargo desde una región altiplánica hacia el oriente del país. Pero durante el viaje, la virgen es robada en uno de los pueblos de las regiones andinas y llevado a la región de los Yungas, los protagonistas tratan de recuperar la imagen sagrada, pero al final, llegan a un acuerdo con los pobladores en los Yungas y la imagen se queda en un pueblo de dicha región.

The Flyer

Bernd, an insurance broker trainee, flees his mundane life in Germany to set a new World record in hang gliding in Bolivia.

Echando Raíces

Corporate Accountability

Images of Argentinian companies and factories in the first light of day, seen from the inside of a car, while the director reads out documents in voiceover that reveals the collusion of the same concerns in the military dictatorship’s terror.

When the Bull Cried

Danger, toil, and superstition pervade life in a mining town high up in the Bolivian mountains. Tin is the heartbeat of the community providing jobs and livelihoods - but at considerable cost. With deaths commonplace, people make offerings to El Tio, the devil under the earth, for protection and good fortune. But when the mountain's flow of tin ebbs, further measures must be taken...

Cocalero

A documentary centered on the union formed by Bolivian farmers in response to their government's (which was urged by the U.S.) effort to eradicate coca crops, and the man who would come to represent them, Evo Morales.

Materia Prima

Bolivia has the world's largest deposits of lithium, a metal that is essential for the energy transition. Without lithium, no electricity storage facility, no data centre, no electric car, no smartphone would work. The Europeans want the raw material to save their automotive industry. The Bolivians want it to combat poverty. While the Bolivian government negotiates with corporations from around the world, civil society groups are mobilising in rural areas, organised mainly by women. The film offers a rare insight into the Europeans' strategy to secure the sought-after material and carves out the conflicting interests towards extractivism and industrialisation in Bolivia.

Every Day is Night

For many years, the Swiss photographer Jean-Claude Wicky captured the world of Bolivian miners in photographs. When he discovered how strongly they reacted to his pictures, he decided to make a film. Black-and-white photographs alternate with film sequences, in which the miners talk about the harsh conditions of their everyday lives, while also rendering visible their pride, dignity, culture and dynamic traditions. Every day is night is first and foremost a testimonial of profoundly sincere human encounters based on respect, generosity and gratitude.

L'Autre pays