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Coca grower gets presidency, film
Festival features film about Bolivia’s President Evo Morales
Alejandro Landes wanted to make a film about Evo Morales when, in 2005, he was on the verge of becoming Bolivia’s first indigenous leader since Europeans arrived on the continent 500 years ago.
“I was first attracted to the historical significance of an Aymara Indian for president,” said the Argentina-based filmmaker, via e-mail.
“Then, however,” added Landes, “you have to ask why Evo would be the first ‘indigenous’ president in Bolivia when he dresses in sneakers and jeans, doesn’t speak Aymara or Quechua fluently, and venerates the Real Madrid soccer club.”
Landes explains all these contradictions, and more, in “Cocalero,” a documentary film to be shown as part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, running June 15-28 at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center.
“Cocalero,” which Variety called a “fine debut” for the first-time director, is one of several Latin American features in the festival.
Also included are “City of Photographers,” a film about independent photojournalists during Chile’s repressive Pinochet regime and “The Railroad All-Stars,” the story of a group of Guatemalan prostitutes who form a soccer team as a way to draw attention to the abuse they endure.
From Mexico, “The Violin,” tells the fictional tale of a musician who doubles as a supporter of an armed guerrilla movement.
Landes believes films like these show “there are a lot of stories to tell in Latin America because of the region’s overwhelming social and economic disparities.”
He hopes his documentary will educate North American audiences in the subtleties of politics and culture south of the border.
Noting that Morales, a coca grower, gained some of his political strength from a reaction against the U.S.-sponsored war on drugs, he tells of an experience after a screening of “Cocalero” at the Sundance Film Festival. “
An elderly lady came up to me and asked, ‘If it were not for the violence of the U.S. anti-drug policy in Bolivia, could a leader like Evo have come to power?’ “
“I was taken aback by the question, and still think about it today,” says Landes. “If the film serves as a catalyst for that type of analysis, I will be very happy.”
