Bolivian Debut Feature ‘Utama’ Drives Home Impact of Climate Change
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente By telling the story of an elderly indigenous couple as they eke out a living in the arid Bolivian highlands, Alejandro Loayza Grisi brings home the all-too-real perils of climate change in his country and around the world.
But “Utama” (“Our Home”) is also an enduring love story, played by real-life couple Jose Calcina and Luisa Quispe, who’ve been married for 48 years.“Utama,” which world premieres Jan.
22 at Sundance’s World Dramatic Competition section, is the fiction feature debut of Loayza Grisi, who credits his work in still photography and documentaries for the precise framing of the film’s stunning, otherworldly landscapes and moving character portraiture.
It was while traveling around Bolivia as a DP for the documentary series “Planet Bolivia” where he saw first-hand how the rural communities’ way of life — some just outside the main cities — was being threatened by the extreme changes in the climate. “Utama” turns on elderly Quechua couple Virginio and Sisi, played by non-pros Calcina and Quispe, whose daily routine tending to llamas is disrupted by an unusually long drought.
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