Wara Wara
| Wara Wara | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | José María Velasco Maidana |
| Starring |
Juanita Taillansier Martha de Velasco Arturo Borda Guillermo Viscarra Fabre Emmo Reyes |
| Distributed by | Urania Film |
|
Release date
|
1930 |
|
Running time
|
69 minutes (restored version, 24 fps) |
| Country | Bolivia |
| Language | silent |
Wara Wara is a 1930 Bolivian feature film, directed by José María Velasco Maidana, combining historical drama and romance. The film was described as a "superproduction" by the press at the time.
Long thought to be a lost film, it was rediscovered in 1989, restored, and screened for a new "premiere" in September 2010. It is "the only known surviving work from Bolivia's silent-film era".
The film is named for the eponymous main character, Inca princess Wara Wara (played by Juanita Taillansier). Set in the 16th century, it is a "historical narrative of the Spanish conquest of Qullasuyu", the Aymara territories of the Inca Empire. "A peaceful Inca community is massacred by a group of conquistadores", and survivors -among whom Wara Wara- flee into the mountains. Later, Wara Wara is assaulted by two Spanish soldiers, and rescued by "a conquistador with a noble heart", Tristan de la Vega. The two fall in love, but are confronted with the mutual hatred between their peoples. Sentenced to death, they escape, and "live happily ever after". The film's closing scene show "a final prude kiss against the backdrop of a sunset on the edge of the Incas' sacred lake", Lake Titicaca.
Velasco Maidana had previously directed The Prophecy of the Lake (La profecía del lago), a 1925 film and love story between an Aymara man and the daughter of a white landowner. The film was censored for its "social critique", and never shown. For Wara Wara, he inverted the gender roles (an indigenous woman falling in love with a white man), and changed the setting. The Prophecy of the Lake had been set in his own time, while Wara Wara was set four centuries earlier, so as to appear less shocking and avoid censorship.Wara Wara was inspired by Antonio Diaz Villamil's novel La voz de la quena.
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