Utama
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Trailer Watch: Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Utama
Watch the trailer for photographer-turned-filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi‘s Utama ahead of the film’s theatrical release via Kino Lorber in New York and Los Angeles next month. The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema Dramatic) after screening at the this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is also Bolivia’s official Oscar submission for Best International Film. Outside of Sundance, the film has garnered wider recognition after going on to receive awards at various international festivals, among them the Grand Prize for Best Film at Transilvania, Best Ibero-American Film, Jury Prize, Best Director, and Best Original Music at Malaga and Best […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 20, 2022 -
Sundance 2022 Critic’s Notebook: The Mission, Utama
The beginning of Tania Anderson’s The Mission transported me from my virtual festival cocoon to Utah’s snowy slopes and the towns below; the ambient Mormonism emanating from those surroundings is a shadow structure of any IRL Sundance. Anderson’s debut feature documentary invites viewers to observe the nice-seeming young men and women dispatched from there to proselytize on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The opening introduces four main subjects—two male, two female—preparing to separate from their families for a two-year term, beginning with nine weeks of missionary training camp in Provo. From there, they’re sent to Finland, whose total […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 27, 2022 -
“The Challenges We Had Were All Related to Nature”: DP Barbara Alvarez on Utama
In Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Utama, an ailing man tries to persuade his elderly Quechuan grandparents weathering a drought on the Bolivian Altiplano to move away from their lifelong home and join him in the city. Shot on location, the film portrays the daily routines and relaxed pace of life as well as the climate threat residents of the Bolivian highlands face. Below, cinematographer Barbara Alvarez recounts how the climate created difficulties in production and how she captured the tension between the harshness and the beauty of the location. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2022 -
“The Silences, the Looks, Are What Mark the Emotional Rhythm”: Editor Fernando Epstein on Utama
Utama, the feature debut by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, concerns an elderly Quechua couple urged by their grandson to move to the city while their native land is ravaged by drought. The pace of life and the experience of time are major themes in the film, and editor Fernando Epstein discusses how this necessitated creative ways of depicting routine and delaying the introduction of a major character. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Epstein: I am Uruguayan, and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2022 -
“The Reason I Make Films Has Been Reinforced by the Pandemic” | Alejandro Loayza Grisi, Utama
The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year? Among all the ways people had to live during the pandemic, mine was undoubtedly one of the privileged ones, and I feel grateful for how lucky […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2022
