Main Cast

Ignacio Mallku (played by Marcelino Yanahuaya, communal leader of Kaata)

Paulina Yanahuaya (played by Benedicta Huanaca, a miner from Huanuni)

Sixto (played by Vicente Vernero, a miner from Huanani)

Crew

Director: Jorge Sanjinés

Scriptwriter: Oscar Soria

Cinematography: Antonio Eguino

Music: Alberto Villalpando

Producer: Ricardo Rada for Ukamau

Awards

Winner, Best Foreign Film, George Sadoul Award, Paris, 1969

Winner, Gran Premio Espiga de Oro, Valladolid, Spain, 1970

Jury Selection, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1970

Voted 59th most historically significant film by UNESCO

Plot

Ignacio and his wife, Paulina, have lost their three children and they walk to the top of a hill to bury three dolls in memory of their children. In the village they are discussing why the women appear to have become barren. Shock cut to the scene in which some villagers – Ignacio among them – are taken to the top of a hill and shot. Ignacio, who is not quite dead, is taken by Paulina to La Paz to see if Ignacio’s brother, Sixto, can help them. They take him to hospital but the blood is too expensive. Sixto asks Paulina how it all happened, and – in flashback – we revisit the steps whereby Ignacio, elected head of the community, discovers that the Cuerpo del Progreso (The Progress Corps, a thinly veiled reference to the real-life Peace Corps) – under cover of providing modern medical treatment to the women in the village – has been sterilising the women in the village in their Maternity Clinic. All the while this story is being recounted we cross-cut to the desperate attempts by Sixto to get medical help for his dying brother. The community decides to attack the gringos during a party. They kill – or possibly emasculate – the gringos. Sixto returns empty-handed to the hospital and finds that his brother has already died. The film concludes with an image of rifles raised in defiance.

Analytical Overview

Yawar Mallku (The Blood of the Condor) is Jorge Sanjinés’s most famous film, even if not all critics would agree it is his best. On the day of its premiere in La Paz (17 July 1969), the theatre where it was about to be shown – the 18 de Julio – was suddenly closed down as a result of the film’s inflammatory subject matter; a public riot ensued and, eventually, the authorities relented and allowed the film to be screened (Hennebelle and Gumucio-Dagrón, p. 80).