His buildings are garish, colorful and completely overloaded. Columns and glittering chandeliers everywhere, and way too much of everything. The Bolivian civil engineer and architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre (*1971) builds houses in El Alto for a nouveau riche upper class of the Aymara, the largest indigenous ethnic group in Bolivia.
In the rich hill of Potosí in Bolivia there is a silver mine that was the largest in the world. It has been exploited since 1546 with the arrival of the Spanish who enslaved the indigenous people to steal the precious metal. To this day, hundreds of meters underground, the indigenous miners continue to exploit the mine in extremely precarious conditions, Martín Cádiz is one of them; hi works in the depths of the hill and desires that his children do not enter these tunnels of hell.
General Alfredo Ovando Candia was a decisive figure in 20 th century Bolivian history. Through old home movies and institutional footage, Mauricio Ovando goes in search of the figure (and the shadow) of his grandfather, interweaving his history and History while going after an uncomfortable truth.
Jenny Smith is a young American journalist searching for her long-lost grandfather in the mountains of Bolivia. When she finds her grandfather's partner and fellow gold-prospector, Rodrigo Diaz, he gives her answers that she didn't expect.
This is the history of a young farmer of the Bolivian plateau that becomes the first indigenous president of Bolivia. His childhood consists of shepherding ewes in the small school located in Orinoca where he befriends Reneco and Jamie, as well as his first love Wilma. All of them partake in different stages of each others lives. At the young age of 17 he is transferred to Oruro mining city in the heat of the Bolivian plateau. In order to survive he will have to work as a brick maker, baker, and trompetista in the Imperial band. The poverty and continuous droughts in the Moral field force the family Ayma to migrate towards the cochabambino tropic. In the tropical Chapare, Evo will become the biggest coca grower, soon to be delegated and win in the elections for president in 2005 with 54% votes. Evo Pueblo depicts the reality of our country, accounting for the common man that inhabits Bolivia through his fights, joys, poverty, exclusion and marginamiento.
The story of a poor girl who leaves her starving family and sheep for a more prosperous village. Her grandfather finds her and tries to convince her to return to her home.
The film tells the story of a girl who arrives in the city with her young son and must take care of an old house where an elf lives. One day the child disappears mysteriously, which will motivate his mother to do the impossible to recover it.
Critical investigation of The World Bank and IMF. Too hot for PBS, but prime time TV everywhere else. Do the World Bank and IMF make the poor even poorer? Are the Bank and IMF democratic institutions? Why do people demonstrate against the Bank and IMF? For the first time, a documentary global investigation of major criticisms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. Five country case studies are presented, each concentrating on a different aspect of critics' charges: 1. Bolivia: Debt, Drugs and Democracy 2. Ghana: The Model of Success 3. Brazil: Debt, Damage and Politics 4. Thailand: Dams and Dislocation 5. Philippines: The Debt Fighters. The charges, including those related to structural adjustment, are controversial and provocative. Some go to the heart of the power and policies of these institutions.
In 1879, Bolivia lost its access to the sea in a war. When I was a child I did not understand how we had lost it; he thought the Chileans had taken him away in buckets. It is a diary towards interior landscapes, myths, characters and contradictions in a country that relives this loss every day.
Documents the conflicts and tensions that arise between highland migrants and Mosetenes, members of an indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. It focuses particularly on a system of debt peonage known locally as ‘habilito’. This system is used throughout the Bolivian lowlands, and much of the rest of the Amazon basin, to secure labor in remote areas.
A day in the life of Esperanza, a Quechua girl who lives in the remote mountains of southwestern Bolivia.
A Bolivian by birth, who grew up with adoptive parents in the Swabian town of Mössingen, is looking for his family in the mountains of Potosí. Out of poverty, his mother gave the little boy away when he was just a few months old. The search carries a story that goes far beyond personal fate. Because Manuel was born in a region known for the ruthless exploitation of silver. It's a film about identity, homeland and equal opportunities.
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...
2006: Evo Morales, first indigenous President is elected in Bolivia after the 2003 dramatic events following the fall of the President Sanchez de Lozada (exiled in the U.S. since then). The socialist revolution enters in its crucial stage. But dealing with power carries a burden of temptations and pathologies. In four years of shooting between Bolivia and the US this film focus on the difficult path of this unique historical opportunity. The film ends with the recent TIPNIS dramatic indigenous protest which creates an historical circle.
Young bootblack Tupah embarks on a frantic quest to find his uncle, Jacinto, lost in the Averno. In a dangerous journey through the underworld, myth and reality get endlessly intertwined and the death-loaded night in La Paz unveils the darkest and most surreal face of the imaginary of the Andes.
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.