“These films centre on issues that concern me: Movement and migration, tensions between generations, indigenous identity, rural and urban landscapes. In many ways, these matters are central to Bolivia’s contemporary experience. While making the films, I was less interested in storytelling and more focused on evoking a certain place or moment while making use of observational perspectives and montage.”
Bocamina
Potosí, a colonial mining town in Bolivia. At the adit we see faces of the workers leaving the mine. At school, children look at stills from the mine. Images of other times?
Compañía
A trip, leaving the city.
In a village, between the mountains, music is played for the dead.
Memories and dreams appear, journeys back and forth.
Urbano is baptised.
El corral y el viento
In other times, the first men emerged out of the waters of Lake Titicaca. Years later, my grandfather was locked up in a donkey corral as punishment for attempting to learn how to read and write. Now my uncle lives alone because all of his relatives moved to the city. At school, children learn Spanish under a painting of Pythagoras. This film is a portrait of Santiago de Okola the Aymara village of my father.
*1985 in Hamburg, lives in La Paz
Miguel Hilari studied cinema in La Paz, Santiago de Chile and in Barcelona. His documentary films (El corral y el viento, 2014; Compañía, 2019; Bocamina, 2019) centre on work, colonial history, migration and indigenous culture. Pre-existing images often are re-elaborated and questioned. His films have been shown and won awards at various international film festivals. He also works as a producer and editor and runs the project Proyecto Torrente involving image and sound workshops in rural schools.
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