Virginio and Sisa live in the arid Bolivian highlands. Virginio attends to their animals, Sisa is responsible for gathering water. But global warming’s destructive reach has touched them, as the water is becoming more and more difficult to acquire in Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s studied debut.
This elderly Quechua couple has spent their lives herding llamas, raising their family and carrying on day-to-day. Nothing seems to have changed, except that the water is growing more and more difficult to get, the result of a seemingly unending drought. Their grandson, Clever, is trying to get them to move to the city, as he and many others have done before them, but this life is all they know. Soon ‘utama’–’our home’ in the Quechua dialect–is swiftly losing its ability to sustain them. “[A]an exceptional debut that reveals a heightened visual sense.” –Todd McCarthy, Deadline
Director Biography
Born in Bolivia, Alejandro Loayza Grisi studied advertising and graphic design in Córdoba, Argentina before becoming a photographer and then cinematographer on numerous short films. Utama (2022) debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and is his first feature film.
Sponsors
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