The 10th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival program will present a program of four films that explore the issues facing Bolivia’s indigenous farmers of coca.

Through both documentary and narrative films, audiences will explore the many resonances of the debate over coca, a plant of great cultural value in Bolivia’s indigenous communities, and of great controversy throughout the Americas.

“Our Coca Culture program highlights films shot in Bolivia, but more than that, portrays a region under dramatic transformation,” says Director of Programming Jacqueline Rush Rivera, “An innovative action/comedy/road movie, WHO KILLED THE WHITE LLAMA?, and information-rich documentaries, like COCA LIVES and HARTOS EVOS AQUI HAY provide our North American audiences with a multi-faceted look a these stories.”

Rush Rivera adds, “COCALERO, our fourth film in the coca program, documents the historic campaign of the first indigenous president in Bolivian history. Director Alejandro Landes’ intimate portrayal of one of South America’s most controversial leaders, and the coca growers who organized to get him elected, is a stunning achievement.”

Director Alejandro Landes will present his documentary COCALERO to Austin Audiences. This Austin screening will come directly after Landes’ first screening of COCALERO in Bolivia, in the Chapare jungle for 2,000 coca growers who base their livelihoods on growing coca.

Director Rodrigo Bellot will also be in Austin to present his film QUIEN MATO A LA LLAMITA BLANCA? (Who killed the White Llama?). This quick-paced comedy both satirizes and celebrates the customs of Bolivia’s indigenous communities.

The four films focused on Coca are as follows:


COCALERO
Alejandro Landes, Bolivia/Argentina/USA, 2006 Wednesday, April 25, 7 p.m., Regal Metropolitan Theater

Bolivia 2005: An Aymara Indian and union leader named Evo Morales launched a seemingly impossible bid to become his country’s first indigenous president. A must for anyone interested in Latin America’s present and future, this fly-on-the-wall documentary reveals he personalities and politics behind one of the region’s most astonishing stories


QUE PASA DESPUES DE LA COCA?
Coca Lives
Roberto Lanza, Bolivia, 2006
Sunday, April 22, 2:30 p.m., Hideout Theater

Today, there are 70,000 families in Bolivia whose livelihoods depend exclusively on the cultivation of the coca leaf. Twelve years ago the Bolivian government declared this practice illegal. The Bolivian Government, with the political and military support of the United States, has militarized the region of Chapare and begun a plan of forceful eradication. Are the undeniable social and economic evils of cocaine smuggling the real reason for this conflict? Can one dominant culture attempt to eradicate the foundations of a subservient one many miles away, geographically and morally?


QUIEN MATO A LA LLAMITA BLANCA?
Who Killed the White Llama?
Rodrigo Bellott, Bolivia, 2006
Saturday, April 21, 6 p.m., Regal Metropolitan Theater Tuesday, April 24, 9:45 p.m, Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar

Jacinto and Domitila, an indigenous Bolivian couple, are the most wanted criminals in the country. “El Negro” hires them to carry 50 kilos of cocaine from El Alto, the highest city in the world, to the Brazilian border in the Amazon jungle. Disguising Domitila as a pregnant farmer, with the cocaine hidden in her false womb, their journey starts in the snowy mountains of Bolivia and leads them across the entire country through deserts coalmines, valleys, cities and rainforests.


HARTOS EVOS AQUI HAY: LOS COCALEROS DEL CHAPARE Plenty of Evos: The Coca Growers of Chapare Hector Ulloque Franco, Manuel Ruiz Montealegre, Colombia, 2006 Saturday, April 21, 2:30 p.m., Hideout Theater

This documentary, filmed during the last presidential election in Bolivia examines the symbolic and cultural value of the cocoa leaf and the importance of the coca growers’ labor union. The film also sheds light on contemporary social movements, traditional Indian organizations, and political participation in Bolivia.