103m; Spain/Mexico/France
Director: Icíar Bollaín
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Luis Tosar and Karra Elejalde
Synopsis: A Spanish film crew comes to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1999 to make a film about Christopher Columbus. The intent is to do a revisionist account portraying Columbus not as a hero, but as a conqueror. The film crew is not well financed and looking to cut costs, which includes to indigenous Bolivians being hired to star in the movie. At the same time, a mounting wave of protests is occurring, with one of the film extras serving as a major leader, over the privatization of Cochabamba’s water supply. The film crew becomes entangled in the protests in an ever more complex and deep ways. A superb film about the intersections and limits of art and politics.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 