- Bolivia
EL GRAN MOVIMIENTO
Synopsis
After a week’s march on foot, Elder and his colleagues from the mine reach La Paz. They want to force their reinstatement, but the city, a tangle of cable cars, markets and engines, has no use for them. Elder starts coughing, grows weaker; old Mamá Pancha finds the men work as porters at the market. When his condition worsens, she sends him to Max, a healer, hermit and clown who lives in the hills above the city and might bring the young man back to life. “El Gran Movimiento” by Kiro Russo, Bolivia 2021, is at once a portrait of a city and the fever record of a body.
Russo shot on Super 16 with non-professional actors, combining documentary observation with fictional narrative; he cites Robert Bresson as a reference point. The film listens to La Paz until the noise becomes music, tipping into the hallucinatory in its final stretch. It premiered in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival in 2021, where “El Gran Movimiento” won the Special Jury Prize; Bolivia submitted it for the Oscar for Best International Feature. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2021.
Festival
Shown at the 2021 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
