Utama won the World Dramatic Prize at Sundance this year and is tipped for an Oscar nomination, too. The film is set in a remote region in Bolivia’s arid highlands. Its gentle pace and non-professional actors give it a documentary feel but there is real narrative skill deployed. Director Alejandro Loyza Grisi started off his career as a stills photographer before moving into film and it shows in the stunningly beautiful images he’s captured with cinematographer Babara Álvarez.
Utama (Bolivia/Uruguay/France/2022), the title of Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s debut feature, means ‘our home’ in Quechua. The film questions our place in nature, and the necessity of giving back in order to benefit from it. Utama premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema-Dramatic. <a class="view-article" href="https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/bolivia/nature-will-always-come-back-to-life-bolivian-director-talks-climate-change-and-his-award-winning-film-utama-71493/">Read Article</a>
Our impending climate catastrophe colors every action in writer-director Alejandro Loayza Grisi's feature debut. The "Sundance prize-winning Bolivian llama farmer movie about climate change" screens this weekend at the Brattle Theatre.