Bolivia

Cinema of Bolivia

The early pioneers of Bolivian cinema include cameraman J. Goytisolo, Luis Castillo, and Luis Bazoberry.

In 1904, the “Portrait of Historic and Current Characters” is considered the first Bolivian-made movie, which included images of the country’s leaders.

Later, filmmaker Luis Castillo worked with anthropologist Arturo Posnasky.  Together they created Condor Mayku Films, which produced “The Glory of the Race” in 1926.  Posnasky had an interest in studying the culture of the Tiahuanaco and found filmmaking as a good way to showcase his findings.

“Aymara Heart” (1925), produced by José Maria Velasco Maidana’s production company, Urania Films,  is considered the first scripted feature film, and “Wara Wara,” (1930) is Bolivia’s sole surviving silent film.  Directed by Jose Maria Velasco, “Wara Wara,” Aymara for “stars,” tells the story of an indigenous Aymara community that’s massacred by Spanish conquistadors, forcing the few survivors to flee.  After being rescued, the young princess, Wara, falls in love with a conquistador and their inter-ethnic romance ensues.

Luis Bazoberry’s 1936 “Green Inferno,” about the Chaco War, is considered the first sound film made by a Boliviano as well as “Indian Virgin” (1948) being the first sound film made in Bolivia, by Kenneth Wasson, a former U.S. cultural attache who was living in Bolivia and developed the film in his bathtub.  It’s a 15 minute, black and white documentary about the Virgin of Copacabana. 

As in many places around the globe, filmmaking in Bolivia declined as a result of WWII.  

In the 1950s, parallel to the Cinema Novo movement of Brazil, and Argentina’s Third Cinema; Bolivia sought to create a new kind of cinema to help define its national identity.  

For the decades to follow, Bolivian cinema was intertwined with the political consciousness of its filmmakers, and focused especially on showing the economic hardships within Bolivia’s indigenous communities.

Aesthetically, it was anti-Hollywood in “an attempt to create a genre of film made for the people by the people.”  (The Art And Politics Of Bolivian Cinema by José Sánchez-H.)  Films were made on location, with non-actors trying to represent a day-to-day reality through an often critical-political lens.

In 1952, the April Revolution occurred as a result of a military coup, which provoked a revolt by the miners who defeated the military with Victor Paz Estenssoro taking over.  The miners’ victory culminated with the nationalization of the mines, major agrarian reform, and voting rights for all citizens.  

The 1950’s and 1960’s were milestone years in the history of Bolivian cinema.  This was a time in Bolivian history where the country was culturally celebrating its pre-Hispanic roots.

Influential filmmakers emerged, including Waldo Cerruto, Jorge Ruiz, Jorge Sanjines and Augusto Roca.

In 1953, Jorge Ruiz directed a documentary “Come Back Sebastian,” which was censored by the government, who tried to block it from screening at a festival in Uruguay seeing as it was a film that celebrated Bolivia’s indigenous cultures.

However, it was smuggled out of the country, allegedly by an ambassador, and awarded first place at the Uruguayan festival in the “ethnographic category.”

Also in 1953, the Instituto Cinematografica Boliviano (ICB) was created to promote the government of Victor Paz Estenssoro in the wake of the 1952 revolution.  Through the ICB, the government had a monopoly on the film industry.

There’s a film in the vaults of Bolivian cinema, “The Courage Of The People,” made by one of the most important filmmakers in Bolivian history, Jorge Sanjines. 

Born in 1936, Sanjines is credited by some for starting the Latin American New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s.  His films are based on realism and social issues, forming a concept of “militant filmmaking,” the aesthetics and impetus of which is said to have inspired the more widely recognized revolutionary filmmaking of Cuba. 

“The Courage Of The People” is strictly speaking a political film. It is a direct attack on the Bolivian politics of its day.  The film was made in 1971, and delves into the situations of the indigenous mining communities. 

The inhabitants are ancestors of those who were forced into the mita system, or forced labor, and were still working the mines and being exploited by the powers-that-be. 

Even centuries after independence, the film depicts that there was still a Spanish-Colonial power-hold over the indigenous majority of Bolivian workers.  In its most extreme metaphor, Bolivia has been described as a “South American apartheid.”

“The Courage Of The People” documents a cycle of government-approved miner massacres from 1942 through 1967.  

What I learned after watching this movie is that there was a pattern in twentieth-century Bolivia to quell miners’ protests by sending in the army to massacre them, often ordered by the mine owner himself.  These communities, mostly indigenous, were often far away from large populations. 

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Bolivian filmmakers started playing around with a lighter form of social realism and a more commercial style of filmmaking emerged; known as “Possible Cinema,” which focused more on portraitures of urban society.

In 1977, one of Alejandro’s favorite films, “Chuquiago,” was released, and became a hit at the Bolivian box office.  “Chuquiago” was directed by Antonio Eguino, who has become a sort of mentor to Alejandro.  Eguino went on to direct films such as “Bitter Sea” (1987), and “The Andes Don’t Believe In God” (2007).