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Even the Rain (También la Lluvia)

Iciar Bollaín
Spain / 2010 / 104 min / Spanish with English subtitles

Costa and Sebastian arrive in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to shoot a period film about Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.  They’re on the tightest of budgets, but the shoot gets off to a smooth start.  But things get complicated when their extras and main actor, locals to Cochabamba, rise up against the privatization of their drinking water.  Their battle to get their film made intertwines with the fight of their Bolivian crew members, deprived of their most basic rights, prohibited from collecting even the rain.500 years after Columbus, sticks and stones are once again up against the steel and gunpowder of a modern army. It’s David versus Goliath once more. Only this time they’re fighting over the real gold of the 21st century; drinking water. Costa does everything he can to keep Daniel out of the uprising. The conflict grows more and more violent during the course of the shoot until the infamous Bolivian Water War breaks out, which actually occurred in April of 2000.Despite their best efforts, the producer and director are embroiled in the conflict. The violence puts them to the test and pits them against each other. The two friends are forced to choose between loyalty and betrayal, and between solidarity, failure and loneliness. Daniel tells Sebastian “Some things are more important than your film.”  

Even the Rain is one of the many films included in the catalogue of Spanish Film Club.

Icíar Bollain was born in Madrid in 1967. Her interest in cinema can be traced back to her teenage years and her roles in films such as Victor Erice's The South and Manuel Gutierrez Aragon’s Misadventure. She subsequently appeared in Tocando Fondo, directed by José Luis Cuerda, Land and Freedom, by Ken Loach, and Jose Luis Borau’s Niño Nadie (1997) and Leo (2000), for which she was nominated for the Goya for Best Actress. She made her debut as a director in 1995 with Hi, Are You Alone? at the Valladolid Film Festival, where she won the Best New Director award. She subsequently directed Flowers from Another World (1999), Amores que matan (2000) and Take My Eyes (2003) – for which she won seven Goyas, including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film. For Mataharis, the last film she has directed, she received two Goya nominations. 

Oscars® Film Academy Award 
- supervision Spain's official submission for the 2011 Foreign-Language 

Goya Awards
- Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Score, Best Production

Berlin International Film Festival
- Best Fiction Film

Ariel Awards
- Best Latin American Film 

Spanish Cinema Writers Circle Awards
- Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film, Best Score, Best Original Screenplay

Palm Spring International Film Festival
- Bridging the borders Award

ACE Awards
- Best Director, Best Film, Best Supporting Actor

Quotes

"Splendidly panoramic...a grandeur and a force reminiscent of Terrence Malick films." -Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Considering how ambitious it is, how many different narrative strands it employs... [it] does a remarkably good job keeping its disparate elements involving and in harmony." -Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES