LATINA “UTAMA” wins the Sundance Film Festival
Los Angeles (USA), (Efe).“utama”, a co-production by Bolivia, Uruguay and France shot in Quechua and Spanish, won the jury prize this Friday in the international section of the Sundance Film Festival, the most important contest of independent cinema.
The film, directed by Bolivian Alejandro Loayza, is not based on real events but offers a profound reflection on globalization and the consequences of the climate crisis on indigenous communities such as the Quechua.
“I wanted to show a reality that is very close to the cities. (…) There are already compatriots who have had to leave their homes due to climate change,” Loayza explained in an interview with Efe after the first showing of the film, a of the three proposals in Spanish that competed in the international section of Sundance.
“Utama” narrates the efforts to face the drought of an indigenous couple, played by José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, married in real life and without any previous experience before the cameras.
“They were not interested in appearing in the film, I convinced them through their nephew. (…) They act with naturalness and feeling because they really empathize with the story,” explained the filmmaker.
“CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH” AND “NAVALNY” STAND OUT IN THE AWARDS
Given the increase in coronavirus infections in the US, the organizers of Sundance had to cancel the physical edition of the festival in Park City (Utah) to hold a digital contest that, after a week of online screenings, unveiled its winners this Friday through social networks.
In the international fiction section, in addition to “Utama”, the
Finnish “Girl Picture” won the audience award. Likewise, the actress Teresa Sánchez triumphed in the acting section for her role in the Mexican film “Dos Estaciones”.
For their part, the documentaries “All That Breathes” (India) and “The Territory” (Brazil) won the jury and audience awards, respectively, with two stories about the effects of climate change.
Finally, in the US competition, “Nanny”, a drama about immigration, won the jury’s prize for the great favorite of this edition: the charismatic “Cha Cha Real Smooth”.
Even so, “Cha Cha Real Smooth” was crowned with the audience award and also achieved one of the juiciest distribution contracts of the entire edition, since Apple has disbursed 15 million dollars to include this tape in the Apple catalog TV +, which promises to be one of the highlights of the next season.
The tech giant has already paid $25 million for last year’s Sundance winner, the lovable “Coda,” who now sounds like one of the favorites to win an Oscar nomination on February 8.
Finally, “Navalny”, an unpublished documentary about the Russian opponent Alexei Nalvani that Sundance included in its programming at the last minute, won the Festival Favorite Award title by gathering the highest number of votes from the public in all the sections.
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance is the mecca of “indie” cinema and the dream of young filmmakers who want to break into the audiovisual industry.
This was confirmed by this year’s selection. 42% of the filmmakers who participated in the festival were debutants and 91% of the films that are part of the program celebrated their world premiere.