Cinema
Chuquiago
Antonio Eguino · 1977
Synopsis
Four lives in the same city, La Paz, which is called Chuquiago in Aymara. Isico, a child from the countryside, works for a market trader, and his hope of learning runs up against exploitation. Johnny, a poor young man, wants to leave for the north and distance himself from his Aymara roots, and finds it hard to bear the dance that his family performs every year at the Gran Poder. Carloncho, a civil servant who supports his family, leads a hidden life of parties and drinking. Patricia, the daughter of a well-off family, has revolutionary ideas that set her against her own.
Context
The film is produced by the Ukamau group, for which its director had been director of photography; it runs eighty-six minutes and is spoken in Spanish and Aymara. The four stories do not come together: each follows a different social class and seeks the place of its character in a society marked by colonialism. Isico is played by Néstor Yujra, a child from the community of Huatajata, discovered during the shoot and with no screen experience at all.
Who it is for
Subtitled, a little under an hour and a half. Four stories with no link between them, other than the city.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the greatest commercial success in the history of Bolivian cinema, and still shown at festivals nearly half a century later.
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