Echando Raíces

Gringo Trails

Are tourists destroying the planet-or saving it? How do travelers change the remote places they visit, and how are they changed? From the Bolivian jungle to the party beaches of Thailand, and from the deserts of Timbuktu, Mali to the breathtaking beauty of Bhutan, GRINGO TRAILS traces stories over 30 years to show the dramatic long-term impact of tourism on cultures, economies, and the environment.

Mamani in El Alto

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.

Sortir la spiritualité autochtone de la clandestinité

Cuando el toro lloró

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...

Our Brand Is Crisis

A documentary on American political campaign marketing tactics and their consequences.

The Devil's Miner

'The Devil's Miner' tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

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 eradicate coca crops, and the man who would come to represent them, Evo Morales.

Responsabilidad empresarial

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.

MONTAÑAS

Bolivia's Climbing Cholitas - a group of indigenous women scaling the Andes Mountains, some of the highest peaks in the world. Shot in Bolivia for Vogue Latin America and Vogue Mexico's 20th anniversary cover story.

Journal de Bolivie

Mein Name sei Altmann

Un minuto de silencio

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.

Mascarades

Mein fremdes Land

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.

Vuelve Sebastiana

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.

Nuna potosí

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.

The Money Lenders

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.

Ficción

This is a movie about Uruguayans who want to make fiction films. We visited various filmmakers seeking to capture the enormous diversity of stories, realities, and sensibilities through the scripts they are writing. We get to know their neighborhoods and homes, and then we get closer to the ways in which each of them adapt the fantasies that have been born in their minds and hearts. In this way, we portray how they experience cinema and what would mean for them to make their film come true.

Habilito: Deuda por Vida

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.