Another Excellent Bolivian Film: Los Andes No Creen en Dios

Last night, here in Cochabamba, I attended the premiere of yet another excellent Bolivian film, this one the ambitious early 19th century period piece, Los Andes No Creen en Dios (The Andes Don't Believe in God), from filmmaker Antonio Egunio. You can see more, including an on-line preview here.

The film is set in 1927, in Uyuni, where tin and silver mining was a major business, making some people wealthy and making thousands of others essentially paid slaves. But the film (as some critics might point out) is not really as much about the brutal exploitation of miners (in fact working miners are almost a non-presence in the film) but about conflicts of morals amidst the better-off living in the city made by the mines.

An almost all-Bolivian cast creates vivid characters, including: Joaquin (Milton Cortez), a young transplanted Cochabambino man who misfortune in love and work eventually makes a wreck; Claudina (Carla Ortiz), a very sexual and free-willed transplanted Cochabambina who makes a lot of men wrecks; and Alfonso (Peruvian Diego Bertie) who navigates everything from banking, getting shot, and getting trapped in a mountain storm, to survive better than any others. I should also make mention of the casting of the respected Bolivian Journalist, Luis Bredow, a friend, as the sanctimonious Roman Catholic priest. Luis was great.

The filming is spectacular and the whole recreation of a time period is on par with any more expensive film coming out of Hollywood – from the costumes, to the trains, to the filmmakers' reconstruction of a whole hotel.

Last night's premiere was like a mini-Hollywood come to La Llajta, complete with vintage cars, late-arriving stars, and strange after-screening hourderves that my daughter wouldn't eat.

Los Andes No Creen en Dios is the latest in a string of recent Bolivian films that are must-sees for anyone interested in the country, including Quien Mato la Llamita Blanca (Who Killed the Little White Llama?), American Visa, and Los Hijos del Ultimo Jardin (Children of the Last Garden).