Bolivia

This film sums up what's good about small cinema. They spend millions of dollars on rubbish movies and then this classic is produced on a shoestring. I thought the use of the football and boxing footage worked well, and overall it is a fantastic film from start to finish. Having just watched Crash, it is interesting to contrast the clichéd approach to racial tension in that film to the delicate yet ultimately more powerful way this film deals with the same theme. What a shame that, judging by the lack of response to this film, not very many people have seen it. Can anyone recommend films of this type that might be worth watching.

Freddie is a Bolivian in Buenos Aires, working as a cook in a small bar/restaurant. His contact with the owner, the working-class customers, and his co-workers tells a story of poverty, intolerance, violence, and despair in contemporary Argentina. This brief (75-minute) film is well worth the effort you may have to make to seek it out. First rate.

Bolivia (2001) This is the first feature-length film from director Israel Adrian Caetano. It was an Argentinean & Dutch Production. Filmed in black & white & on a low budget the film was shot 3 days a week over a period of three years. Kind of a neo-realism slice of life film the mostly plot-free film is confined to a café-bar in the lower-middle class Buenos Aires suburb of Villa Crespo, with few trips outside. It tells the story of Freddy (Freddy Flores), a Bolivian with a gentle disposition, who, after Americans burn down the coca fields where he is employed, loses his job. With little work opportunities in Bolivia, he leaves his wife & three daughters & travels to Argentina to search for employment as an undocumented worker. He hopes to make money & later return to his family. He lands a job as a grill cook in a seedy Villa Crespo café where the owner (Enrique Liporace) is happy to skirt Argentinean immigrant laws in order to secure cheap labor. It is in this café that Freddy meets the characters who affect his life: Rosa (Rosa Sanchez), a waitress of Paraguayan/Argentine descent, & an outsider by virtue of her mixed heritage; Hector (Hector Anglada), a traveling salesman from the province of Córdoba who's gay; a Porteno taxi driver (Oscar Bertea), & one of the driver's buddies. Freddy also has to deal with various Argentine café patrons who view all Paraguayans & Bolivians with disdain due to their ethnicity. The film gives us a realistic portrayal of racism immigrant labor & prejudices in Argentina. Cateano used professional & non professional actors. Freddy Flores was a local non professional. Other reviewers state this film is for art film students only. I disagree. All interested in foreign film & film in South America & Argentina will like this film. It very realistic & I enjoyed it. This short 75 minute film about poverty, intolerance, violence, & despair in contemporary Argentina is powerful & I recommend it. This is a universal story. 3 or 4 stars.

Xenophobia in the third world. Can you believe that. Caetano is possibly the most interesting Argentine director of the 2000s. There is no heros here. Only good characters in a interesting urban collage. Short and entertaining. 8/10

i've seen this movie about 6 times now. and with me a growing number of people in honduras. this country lives on the American dream, so this is a eye opener for them. it shows the real live illegals have. the rough and tough conditions in which they live and work, the in hospitality of the people around them. the introduction of the movie is simply superb and already lays an underground for the rest of the film. shot on 16 mm black and white, the movie has an immense draw to it. and it doesn't matter that the acting is rough on the edges, it just ads. it has made some honduras think things over, but they probably still will go. fits in with La Ciudad and El Norte.