Jorge Sanjinés and Alfonso Gumucio on set while filming El Coraje del Pueblo (1978) Credits: Página Siete
By Carla Suárez
Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés is a pioneer of ethnographic documentary film in Bolivia and one of the greatest film directors of the New Latin American Cinema movement of the 1970s. He particularly focused on documenting indigenous cultures of the Andes: Aymara and Quechua. Sanjinés, an avid critic of colonialism, initiated his cinematic journey under the guiding principle “el cine junto al pueblo” (“cinema with the people”). He took a revolutionary Marxist approach to documentary filmmaking with the mission of giving a voice to the oppressed people of the Andean nation. In 1966, Sanjinés founded the Ukamau Group alongside screenwriter Oscar Soria, cinematographer Antonio Eguino, producer Beatriz Palacios and filmmaker Alfonso Gumucio. The group was named after the title of their first feature-length film Ukamau (meaning “and so it is” in Aymara).
New Latin American Cinema is a film movement, inspired by Italian Neorealismo and Québec documentary genre cinéma direct, that used cinema as an instrument of social awareness and change. Neorealismo is an observational cinema movement mainly characterised by stories based on the socio-economic difficulties of the working class during the post-World War II era in Italy. Cinéma direct emerged between 1958 and 1962 at the National Film Board of Canada in Québec during a time of intense political and social change known as the Quiet Revolution. The main purpose of cinéma direct is to capture reality objectively and represent it truthfully. New Latin American Cinema was heavily influenced by both neorealismo and cinéma direct as its main purpose was to objectively capture the difficult living conditions of the indigenous working class while engaging politically to expose the common issues of Latin American societies: social inequality and misery. The Ukamau Group founding members were deeply influenced by French filmmakers André Bazin and Jean Rouch, who taught documentary filmmaking in the style of cinéma verité at the Paris-based Ateliers Varan. Bazin presented the cinéma verité genre as a way to “access reality via the motion picture camera that could bypass or remain only minimally affected by human intervention”. Ateliers Varan organised a project in Bolivia called Cine Minero which trained miners to use Super-8 cameras to document their lives in the mines. The project was short-lived, but it had a profound and lasting impact on the development of indigenous video in Bolivia. It created a space for indigenous communities and gave them a voice to share their daily life experiences in a way easily digestible by the public, raising awareness about the difficult living conditions of miners as well as giving back the power of self-expression to a marginalized social group often caught up in misrepresented outsiders’ narratives.
New Latin American Cinema emerged as a form of ethnographic film with the aim of creating a meeting between filmmakers and their society. The movement focused on centre-periphery relations and how cinematic practices could build an exchange between the two in order to bridge the deep social and cultural divide in countries such as Bolivia. According to Sanjinés, the separation of culture and revolutionary politics is “artificial and bound to political failure”. Cinema can and must be revolutionary – the idea of “el cine junto al pueblo” is to engage the filmmaker, and ultimately the spectator, into a political awakening and a revolutionary cause.
Sanjinés challenged and subverted the principles of traditional filmmaking to produce a cinema for the nation’s indigenous people. The idea of liberation is at the core of the Ukamau Group’s project of bringing cinema and reality together in order to highlight “the importance of breaking free from traditional film structures to achieve a truthful and revolutionary product”. Sanjinés’s revolutionary aesthetics in documentary filmmaking sought to achieve the emancipation of the oppressed through cinematic expression; the camera acts as an instrument, through which the spectator’s attention is brought to indigenous culture. Thus, filmmaking can be used to raise awareness of oppression and give power back to indigenous people to define their own place within society, allowing the replacement of traditional, misrepresentative narratives with truthful on-screen portrayals.
Jorge Sanjinés on set during the shooting of Yawar Mallku (1969). Credits: La Razón
Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group filmmakers documented ritual practices by placing the camera at the centre of the group, which positions the spectator in the midst of the ritual itself. Such camera placement, referred as “participant camera” by Rouch, gives the spectator the impression of taking part in the scene. The “participant camera” effect allows spectators to move from the position of an external observer to direct engagement in the scene, which permits deeper understanding of indigenous culture and social structures. Sanjinés also frequently filmed indigenous women, children and men looking directly into the camera, an angle which connects them further with viewers and empowers them as an aware subject of the documentary; an active participant in the narrative rather than a distant being to simply be observed. The bilingual nature of Ukamau Group films continues this experimental and subversive film practice, mirroring the inflection of Spanish into native languages.
A scene from La Nación Clandestina (1989) representing the encounter between the clashing cultures of the urban white and mestizo population and the rural indigenous communities. Credits: Festival de Cine de Lima
Among the Ukamau Group’s greatest films are El Coraje del Pueblo (1978) and La Nación Clandestina (1989). El Coraje del Pueblo is based on true events which occurred in June 1967: the largest massacre of workers in the history of Bolivia. A national miners’ federation meeting was assaulted by the Bolivian army as they discussed the ways in which they would support Che Guevara and his guerrilla warfare in Ñancahuazú. Sanjinés believed that, beyond its artistic component, film should carry a social and political responsibility; filmmaking empowers both the filmmaker and the spectator to engage politically. His films pointed to causes and responsabilities – a record of accountability as much as a dramatic reenactment. La Nación Clandestina (1989), widely considered one of the most important films in Bolivian cinema, is a narrative film that follows the story of Sebastián Mamani, a man who returns to his Aymara community in the Andean highlands after years-long exile in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. This film explores the impact of modernity on indigenous communities’ identity and traditions. Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group’s masterpiece is their 1969 film Yawar Mallku (Sangre de Cóndor or Blood of the Condor in Aymara). The film is based on the real events that took place in a Quechua community of the Andes where US Peace Corps medical aids were secretly sterilizing indigenous women. The events caused outrage by the men in the ayllu (community in Aymara), who sought revenge. Yawar Mallku won an award at the Venice Film Festival in 1969 and has been named by UNESCO as one of the 100 most important films of world cinema.
Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group’s films can be defined as revolutionary because it opened doors for indigenous communities of the Bolivian Andes to reclaim their own narratives. Their focus on “el cine junto al pueblo” highlighted pertinent social issues that were affecting native groups of the highlands, which were ignored by upper and middle classes of the city. Sanjinés and fellow Ukamau Group members adopted an ethnographic approach to filmmaking in order to truthfully portray their subjects while politically engaging themselves as well as the audience. Their ethnographic gaze liberated indigenous communities from oppressing and misrepresenting traditional narratives in film, leaving a lasting impact on Bolivian and Latin American cinema.
La Nación Clandestina (1989). Credits: Retina Latina
Carla is a recent King’s College London graduate currently working as a Political and Press Trainee at the EU delegation to Bolivia. Besides her strong interest in political economy, international relations and sustainable development, she is passionate about Latin American culture and its portrayal in film and global media.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Mesa, C., Palacios, B., Sanjinés, J., Von Vacano, A. (1979) Cine Boliviano: del realizador al crítico, Editorial Gisbert
Mesa, C. (1985) La aventura del cine boliviano 1952-1985, Editorial Gisbert
Hanlon, D. (2013) “From Taking to Making Images of Indigeneity: Reading the films of the Ukamau Group Ethnographically”, Bolivian Research Review, University of St. Andrews
Sanchez-H, J. (1999) The art and politics of Bolivian cinema, Scarecrow Press
Sklar, R., Musser, C., Lopez, A. (1990) “An “Other” History: The New Latin American Cinema”, Resisting Images: Essays on Cinema and History, Temple University Press, Philadelphia
Pardo Vélez, O. (2018) Aportes de Jorge Sanjinés al cine revolucionario, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
