Corazón Aymara
Encyclopedia
Corazón Aymara is a 1925 lost Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

n silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 feature film, directed by Pedro Sambarino.

It is generally described as Bolivia's first ever fiction feature film. It portrays an Aymara woman struggling against accusations that she is unfaithful to her husband.

Jeff Himpele, in Circuits of Culture: Media, Politics, and Indigenous Identity in the Andes, places Corazón Aymara in the context of the Bolivian state's "indigenist
Indigenism
Indigenism, Native nationalism, or Indigenous nationalism is a kind of ethnic nationalism emphasizing the group's indigeneity to their homeland...

 project" of the 1920s and 1930s. Corazón Aymara, like José Maria Velasco Maidana
José Maria Velasco Maidana
José Maria Velasco Maidana was a Bolivian film director, composer, conductor, actor, painter and dancer.He is known for "his ballets and symphonic works, a number of which embrace national/native themes", but also for his films. He entered the cinema industry "at the very start of Bolivian fiction...

's Wara Wara
Wara Wara
Wara Wara is a Bolivian feature film, directed by José Maria Velasco Maidana, combining historical drama and romance. The film was described as a "superproduction" by the press at the time.-Preservation:...

(1930), served as a "visual register of the modernization of the nation state" - thus, according to José Antonio Lucero of the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

, "narrating a future of synthetic mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

 nation building". Lucero also notes that indigenous characters in the cinema of the time were orientalised
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

 and played by non-indigenous actors and actresses.

By contrast, historian Carlos Mesa
Carlos Mesa
Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert is a Bolivian politician, historian and President of Bolivia from October 17, 2003 until his resignation on June 6, 2005....

, who founded Cinemateca Boliviana in 1976 and was its director until 1985, then served as President of Bolivia
President of Bolivia
The President of Bolivia is head of state and head of government of Bolivia. According to the current Constitution, the president is elected by popular vote to a five year term, renewable once...

 from 2003 to 2005, describes Corazón Aymara and Wara Wara as part of an "avant-garde intellectual and artistic movement" which promoted the role of indigenous Bolivians in the 1920s and 1930s.

Corazón Aymara is a lost film
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

, as there are no known copies of it in existence; Wara Wara is "the only known surviving work from Bolivia's silent-film era".
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