Toronto Hit ‘The Condor Daughter,’ a High Andes Drama, Gets a First Trailer From Bendita Film Sales (EXCLUSIVE)

According To The variety Arguably the biggest buzz title at Ventana Sur and well received by those who caught it on its Sept. 9 world premiere at last week’s Toronto Festival, Bolivian identity drama “The Condor Daughter” (“La Hija del Condor”) now has a trailer, shared in exclusivity with Variety by the film’s sales agent, Spain’s Bendita Film Sales. Written, directed and produced by Empatia Cinema’s Álvaro Olmos Torrico, a key figure on Bolivia’s cinema scene, “The Condor’s Daughter” was chosen by Variety among 20 International Titles to Track at TIFF. Produced by Empatia Cinema, with Peru’s Ayara Producciones and Uruguay’s LaMayor Cine, “The Condor Daughter” turns on Clara, 16, part of the Totorani Quechua community and her midwife mother Ana’s assistant, living high in the Andes.. The trailer takes in many of the key plot beats. Clara begins it sining soft ancestral songs asking Pachamama, the Quechua each mother, for a child’s safe passage into this world. A radio allows her to tune in to chincha music, a mix of cumbia and Peruan rock which is all the rage in the nearest big city, Cochabamba. Her best friend tells her she’s met a boy from the city. When, jobless, Clara leaves her high Andes village to become a chincha singer, Ana seeks her out in, convinced that the village is cursed, animals dying and crops drying, because of Clara’s departure. A classic coming of age tale grounded in a striking, often sweeping reality, this is a portrait of a teen girl who is torn between her passion, music, and her cultural and affective roots, centering on her adoptive mother and a profession which is disappearing as modern hospital services replace traditional midwifery, paying mothers to give birth on their premises, and village empty of inhabitants. The trailer also captures the range of cinematography, from the huge fall to the valley below, to Clara’s dimly lit home and the lights of Cochimbamba, surveyed by Ana asa world alien to her. “In indigenous communities, the earth is a woman – Pachamama – the mother who provides for us and takes care of us,” Olmos Torrico has told Variety. “Midwives are the messengers of the Pacha. For the Quechua, motherhood is closely linked to the earth, to time and to the agricultural cycle. It’s the core of Bolivian ancestral traditions that persist over time, despite adversity.” “From the moment we saw ‘The Condor Daughter,’ we knew it carried something rare, a tenderness and depth that speak both of a singular place and of universal longing. Álvaro Olmos Torrico has crafted an intimate portrait of tradition, change and identity, and we are honored to help share this powerful story with audiences worldwide,” Luis Renart, head of Bendita Film Sales, told Variety. Bendita Film Sales has initiated conversations for sales in North America, France and Spain, said head Luis Renart. He wil continue to introduce the film at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where Bendita Film Sales represents three selected films: Jose Alayón’s buzzy “Dance of the Living,” world premiering in New Directors; Ana Cristina Barragán’s Horizontes Latinos title “The Ivy” (“Hiedra”) which bowed in Venice Horizons, and Avelina Prat’s “The Portuguese House,” a Malaga premiere which opened in Spain for Filmax on May 9 as the highest grossing of new bows, having earned an appreciable €700, 355 ($819,415) at Spanish cinemas.