El Gran Movimiento (The Great Movement), the critically-acclaimed second feature film by Bolivian director Kiro Russo (Dark Skull) is set to open on Friday, August 12 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City, followed by Los Angeles, before moving onto other cinemas nationwide.

Winner of the Special Jury Prize in the Horizons competition at the Venice Film Festival and an official selection at numerous international festivals including New York, San Sebastian, Hamburg, FIC Valdivia, and Viennale, among others, El Gran Movimiento is an enigmatic exploration of individuality and urbanity that positions Bolivia’s working class at its core, and Latin America’s largest high-altitude metropolis, La Paz, as one of the film’s primary characters.

The film follows Elder, a young man who arrives in the capital after a seven-day journey on foot to protest alongside other miners for the reinstatement of their jobs. Once in the city, Elder and his friends get a job in the market with the help of the elderly Mamá Pancha, but soon his health starts to mysteriously deteriorate. As his condition worsens and he struggles for breath, Mamá Pancha sends him to Max—a medicine man, hermit, and street performer—who attempts to bring the young man back to life. Playing with perspective, sound, and the power of optics, we join Elder and Max on their journey through a dark and swirling landscape while observing the inner workings of the growing city, largely from the outside.

Stunningly shot on evocative super 16mm, the film’s virtuosic editing mirrors the mechanical and human innovations depicted on screen. Russo’s film stresses the relationship between cinematographic staging, sound design, and editing as a way to entangle fiction and documentary elements, eventually becoming a memorable ode to the city and its overlapping layers of mysticism, modernity, and street-level vernacular.

A powerful comment on contemporary urban life and the ills (and beauty) of the modern city, El Gran Movimiento is one of a handful of recently-premiered films contributing to a landmark year for Bolivian cinema on the international festival circuit, and signals Russo as an artist to watch at the vanguard of an auspicious new wave.

Watch a trailer for El Gran Movimiento (The Great Movement).