Blood of the Condor

Although Indigenous people constitute the majority of Bolivia’s population, their culture has largely been devastated by Western civilization. Blood of the Condor offers a powerful encounter with a closed community that has spent five centuries struggling to preserve its language, religion and traditions. “Indians think collectively, act in groups, and are disciplined and unyielding. Their stories are long, yet their expression is economical. They are reserved, and their sense of time is different from ours”, director Jorge Sanjinés once observed. The film is one of the “impossible films” in world cinema: a masterpiece created in a country without a film industry and against the will of the authorities. Drawing on real contemporary events, it elevates them to the level of myth. When a Quechua village leader is wounded by police, he is taken to the capital, La Paz. The harmony of mountain landscapes and Andean music soon gives way to the cacophony and frantic rhythm of the metropolis.

Piotr Kobus

Jorge Sanjinés (b. 1936) – Bolivian film director and screenwriter, a leading representative of Third Cinema. His politically committed films address class struggle, Indigenous identity, and the consequences of imperialism. Sanjinés developed the concept of a “cinema with the people and for the people,” replacing the individual protagonist with a collective subject. His work brought Bolivian cinema international recognition.

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