Lost Songs From Distant Realms

Five mining stories and ten songs: of the devil, the capital and a reconciliation around a miner father, his teenage daughter and a ghost.

Synopsis

The film is the combination of five mining stories that revolve around the life and relationships between Rolando, a drill worker in the Posokoni mine, and his teenage daughter Nina.

It tells the story of Rolando "Charque" Patzi, a miner who makes a pact with the devil in order to fulfill his dream of being famous and successful in music.

Also, the story of Nina, his teenage daughter, on how she escapes with Maria, they fall in love, and finally they are strongly punished by the community because of Nina's father.

The story of the ghost, invoked by Rolando. Elder, an Inca miner who has frozen to death with his family and has been trapped forever in the caves, after having betrayed his community and having forgotten how to talk to the mountains and Mother Earth.

The story of Leonarda, Nina's mother, a woman who tries to become a miner and mysteriously disappears in the galleries; finally, the story of the reconciliation between Rolando and Nina that frees all her ancestors, ghosts tied to the depths of the mine.

Director statement

I have been working in the mining community of Huanuni in Bolivia for over ten years. After a long investigation and years of friendship with miners and villagers, I directed my first feature film Viejo calavera, which won the Special Mention of the jury at 2016 Locarno International Film Festival. My second feature El gran movimiento, the second chapter of my mining trilogy, premiered at the 2021 Biennale where it won the Special Jury award.

Years later, I still feel the need to film in Huanuni and keep telling stories about the working class in a globalized postmodern era from Bolivia, a country in which different times of our humanity coexist.

Lost Songs from Distant Realms is a musical film about the intimate relationship between a daughter and her father in the working class. A film very close to its characters, which aims to portray its most human and intimate side. A film about the events outside the mine, the mining women and the girls and boys of the town, their indigenous relatives in the nearby communities, traditions and their deepest dreams coming from TV programs.

In Lost Songs from Distant Realms, I will continue to use an elaborate mise-en-scène and my exploration in relation to light and darkness, but this time in relation to intimacy, inspiration, music, love and the devil.

The idea is that we can feel the everyday life of both Charque and Nina; their paths, the temporality of the movements of their bodies, the sound of their voices and the spaces they live in, represented and built in a plastic audiovisual way, through purely cinematographic techniques.

Director biography

Born in La Paz and trained at FUC Buenos Aires, Kiro Russo has directed three short films – Enterprisse (2010), Juku (2012), Nueva vida (2015) – and two feature films, Viejo cavalera (2016) and El gran movimiento (2021).

His debut feature Viejo cavalera was selected for more than 80 festivals and won 23 awards including the Special Mention of the Jury at 2016 Locarno, the Grand Prize in 2016 Cartagena Film Festival, the Special Mention at San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Jury Prize in Valdivia Film Festival, the Fipresci Prize at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, and the Grand Prize at Indie Lisboa.

El gran movimiento premiered at 2021 Venice, winning the Special Jury award in the Orizzonti program. Since its launch in Venice, it has been invited to 20 festivals among which San Sebastian, New York Film Festival and IFFR and has won already 10 awards.

Kiro's new project, entitled Canciones perdidas de reinos distantes, is currently in development expected to be shot in Bolivia in 2023.

Huidige status

In development

Goals

Our goal is to meet with international funds, sales agents, distributors, and co-producers.