Completed - Historical - 104 minutes
Year of production : 2009 Director(s) : Icíar BOLLAÍN Writer(s) : Paul LAVERTY Cast : Luis TOSAR, Belén RUEDA Producer(s) : Juan GORDON (MORENA FILMS )
Sebastian is an obsessive idealist who has sworn to himself that he will direct a film about one of the world’s most iconic figures, Christopher Columbus. Not for him the hypocritical lies of a genius sailor on a divine mission to win “souls for Christ”. He is determined to upturn the entire conservative myth of Western Civilisation’s arrival in the Americas as a force for good. His story is about what Columbus set in motion; the obsession with gold, the hunt for slaves with Spanish mastiffs, and terrible violence visited on those Indians who fought back. The brilliant actor playing Columbus constantly challenges Sebastian and accuses him of hypocrisy and cheap manipulation. Costa, Sebastian's old friend and producer, doesn’t give a damn. The only thing that matters to him is his professional pride - that the film is made on time and within budget. Costa has come up with a crazy idea. Despite Sebastian’s fury they will shoot in Bolivia, the cheapest and most Indian of Latin American countries. As the shoot progresses in and around the city of Cochabamba, civil and political unrest simmer below the surface as the entire water supply of the city is privatised and sold to a British/American multinational. As Sebastian and Costa struggle with their film, the violence in the community in which they shoot increases by the day until the entire city explodes into the now infamous Bolivian Water War, a war which actually took place in April 2000. 500 years after Columbus, sticks and stones once again confront the steel and gunpowder of a modern army. David against Goliath once again. Only this time they fight not about gold, but the simplest of life-giving elements - water.
Country(ies) : SPAIN
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