TAHUAMANU - To Die In Pando (Morir en Pando)
• DOCUMENTARY

Written and Directed by CESAR BRIE and JAVIER HORACIO ALVAREZ

The 11th September 2008, the radio announced that in Pando, the youngest and most isolated department in Bolivia, a massacre of peasants had taken place. The following day, the government declared Estado de sitio (state of seige) in the region. The peasants, the government and some of the media denounced the Prefecto of Pando, Leopoldo Fernandez and the officials at his command, as those responsible for what happened.

The rest of the media in Bolivia and the opposition parties pointed the finger at Evo Morales and the ministry of the presidency as the organisers of a genocide in order to achieve the militarisation of Pando. The distance and the contradictions in the media meant that I couldn't understand exactly what had happened.

I left my house and set off for the Bolivian Amazon. In my mind were the images that went around the world: peasants crossing the river trying to escape and the sound of the endless bullets fired by the snipers. In my ears the television commentaries from an edited video, that they had no water in Tahuamanu at the time, that they weren't peasants but soldiers.

On the bank of the river, where there was water, in the same place where, a few days earlier, a group of hitmen were shooting to kill defenceless people I decided to investigate every detail, so as not to miss the truth of what had happened. This documentary is an incomplete account of what we have discovered so far.

The grief, the injury, the mourning, appears when negotiation gives way to violence. Celedonio Bazualdo, Pedro Oshiro, Bernardino Racua now cannot negotiate their differences. They are victims. Without voice, without life, without future, without justice. The force of bullets replaces the effectiveness of reason and leaves only accusations with no going back. When did it start, and how and who is to blame? Was there no massacre? Were there several? Who is lying? The civic leaders, the peasants, the prefecto, ministers, police, the civic committee, military, doctors, judges, lawyers, forensic scientists, journalists? Are the real stories also lies? Which do we believe? how do we clarify what happened? Order of events, precision, precendents, causes, consequences? Can we gave back a face, a memory, a dignity to each of the victims?

PRODUCERS: Donald K. Ranvaud, Cesar Brie
LOCATIONS: Pando, Bolivia
DELIVERY DATE: January 2011
INTERNATIONAL SALES: dranvaud@gmail.com
NATIONALITY: Bolivia
LANGUAGE: Spanish