Last night we arrived in Cochabamba, a city in the Andes in central Bolivia that has played a pivotal role in South America's battle for economic independence. As we document in South of the Border, it was in Cochabamba in 2000 that thousands of people took to the streets after the government privatized drinking water and the California-based company Bechtel raised water rates as much as 200% which meant that people throughout the region couldn't even afford potable water.
Cochabamba is a coca-growing region, and thus also has special significance for President Evo Morales, who as the former head of Bolivia's coca-growers' union, has earned strong criticism from Washington for resisting the scorched-earth tactics of US drug eradication policies. Coca has been used for centuries by Bolivia's indigenous population for medicinal and religious purposes, and through Evo's efforts it has become a potent symbol in Bolivia's battle to control its own rich and varied natural resources.
As you approach the Cochabamba airport, you pass over spectacular rock formations that reflect just how isolated this landlocked country has been both geographically and politically. But our reception there could not have been warmer. We were met at the tarmac by a welcoming committee including many news crews and the Governor of Cochabamba who presented Oliver with a hand-knit ch'ulu hat which he promptly put on.
With help from our Argentine distributor Pampas Films, we had arranged that night for a huge public screening of South of the Border at Cochabamba's El Coliseo La Coronilla, one of the largest indoor sports stadiums in Bolivia. It was an emotional and inspiring event. President Evo Morales was there and as we entered the stadium together, we were draped in wreaths and showered with flower pedals. Before introducing the film, the Mayor of Cochabamba presented Oliver with the key to the city. There were more than six thousand people in the audience, including a big diplomatic corps including the ambassador to Bolivia from Venezuela, and members of Cochabamba's indigenous community wearing traditional shawls and bowler hats.
The audience loved the movie and showed it. In an inspiring display of solidarity, they cheered their president's comments about Bolivia's economic independence and control of its own natural resources, and clapped loudly for similar comments from other presidents. They cheered when Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva said defiantly, "We paid off the IMF , we do not owe anything to anybody, and now we have a $260 billion surplus." They clapped and laughed when Venezuela President Hugo Chavez says of George W. Bush, "You are a donkey, Mr. Bush", and when President Morales shows Oliver the correct way to eat a Coca leaf (holding it by the stem).
Our trip to Bolivia followed an early-morning sit-down in Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil, with presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff who served as Lula's chief of staff, and a screening the night before at FAAP, the renowned film school in Sao Paolo. We arrived in Sao Paolo late because of visa problems and were just in time to attend a Q&A following the FAAP screening. After the screening we had a midnight dinner with our Brazilian distributors Europa Filmes, the great Brazilian director Bruno Barreto and his father, producer Luiz Carlos Barreto and other leading figures in the Brazilian film industry.
We met Rousseff at her campaign headquarters in a residential area of Brasilia as she was gearing up for the fall elections. In a wide-ranging conversation about the Latin American politics and policy, Rousseff talked about the upcoming election (the candidates are neck in neck in the polls); the recent deal to exchange enriched uranium with Iran that Brazil and Turkey had brokered, and which had been harshly and in my opinion unfairly criticized by many in the US media (it gives you thick skin, she said touching her left shoulder); Brazil's reliance on renewable energy sources and her commitment to reducing deforestation of the Amazon rain forest by 80%. Rousseff called the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia a watershed event. Comparing Morales to Chavez and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, she said "These are people who believe in people."
The contrast between the dusty streets of Cochabamba and the modern Brazilian capital of Brasilia, with its extensive urban planning and Oscar Niemeyer architecture, was striking. But it was also very much in the spirit of South of the Border, which chronicles our 2009 road trip across South America to investigate the social and political movements that are transforming the entire continent. Returning to these countries to screen the film, we've been struck again by how these very different societies share so many common goals: independence from U.S. corporate and State Department interests, control of their own natural resources, and the desire to shape their own political destiny. It's our hope that when South of the Border opens in the U.S. on June 24, it will help bring these goals to life, and show why North Americans, so many of whom do not get to hear this side of the story, should start paying much closer attention.
Sulichin is a producer of South of the Border and many other films and the upcoming Showtime miniseries Oliver Stone's Secret History of America.
The american people should pay big attention what Brazil, Bolivia are doing..big attention!
They will create an amazing market place, away from corporationa nd the manipulation of international banking. Way to go, my people!
Mainly because it's just propaganda and not a true documentary.
That position you share with our US State Department is what real propaganda looks like, Ira.
Who the hell is going to go see it in the first place?