Indigenous Media and Political Imaginaries in Contemporary Bolivia by Gabriela Zambrano Villarreal (review)
Bolivia is well known for its politically engaged film industry. Most famously, Jorge Sanjinés directed a series of films with an explicit political agenda, including Yawar mallku (Blood of the Condor), which resulted in the eviction of the Peace Corps from the country, and El coraje del pueblo (English version title is The Night of San Juan) that used community members to reenact a brutal 1967 massacre of striking miners. Over the past several decades, indigenous activists have taken advantage of technological advances in filmmaking to use this medium to forward their own social and political interests. Bolivia continues to be at the forefront of these developments. Since 1997, the nongovernmental National Plan of Indigenous Audiovisual Communication has worked with indigenous communities and organizations to produce and disseminate videos that explore their concerns. Their productions provide a convenient medium through which to understand indigenous realities.