Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante Takes Up Indigenous Rights Once More with ‘Mountains of Fire’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente At the Panama Int’l Film Festival (IFF Panama) to present his latest film “Rita” and give a masterclass, Guatemala’s acclaimed filmmaker Jayro Bustamante sat down with Variety to discuss his upcoming projects, “Mountains of Fire” (“Cordillera de Fuego”) which has just completed post-production, and his first comedy, the adaptation of 1998 Spanish romcom “Nada en la nevera” (roughly translated to “Nothing in the Fridge”).
Bustamante, whose films have represented his country three times in the Oscars’ Best International Feature category (“Ixcanul,” “Temblores” and “La Llorona”), is known for using the power of film for dealing with such thorny issues as Indigenous rights, systemic oppression and LGBTQ+ rights. “Mountains of Fire” began as a social awareness project, which he decided would be more impactful as a feature film, according to Bustamante, who spent his childhood in a Mayan community by Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán.
In the action drama penned by Bustamante, Luis Pineda and Margarita Kénefic, two volcanologists, played by “Ixcanul’s” Maria Mercedes Coroy and Tatiana Palomo, visit indigenous communities to warn and evacuate them from the fire mountain range where a new volcano is forming.
It’s at this time that they begin to uncover the corruption behind the country and its government, and how these ethnic communities are not a priority for the powers that be.
Read more on variety.com