Best Ecuadorian documentary movies

Mariano Cruz Ordóñez is an Ecuadorian bullfighter at the end of his artistic career. Mariano was a figure of bullfighting in Ecuador and participated in the most important bullrings of his country and the world. The glory years have passed and prohibitions have arisen regarding bullfighting shows, and the only thing left is, with tenacity and faith, to fight against various adverse circumstances looking for a chance to move foward.

In 1971, Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano published his landmark work Open Veins of Latin America, in which he comprehensively described the centuries of economic exploitation of Latin America. Almost 40 years later, filmmaker Gonzalo Arijon reevaluates the situation. His search takes him from the soybean plantations of the Brazilian Amazon to the tin mines of Bolivia to the deep jungles of Ecuador. Arijon’s politically committed film allows the local populations to speak for themselves, interspersing this with archival footage of speeches by Hugo Chávez, Lula da Silva and Evo Morales. Galeano himself also speaks—sometimes in poetic language— about how the rise of socialist governments in the early 21st century is benefitting Latin America, and what more can be done.

A fearless sea captain, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.

A portrait of of an era, a generation, of one of the most emblematic bands of Ecuador, Mamá Vudú.

Vicky is fisherman by day and bar owner at night. When she was a little boy her dream was to be a radio soap opera star, nowadays she dreams of falling in love again. How is it possible that a small, barren place in the third world has managed to achieve this special form of freedom and tolerance?

A portrait of Jaime Roldos, Ecuador's first democratically elected president, who died with his family when their plane crashed in the mountains.

In May 2003, around 30 women and children were murdered in the Ecuadorian jungle. The victims belonged to the Taromenani clan, an uncontacted indigenous group in Ecuador. The massacre was left in impunity and oblivion. This documentary explores the history of contact with the Huaorani decades ago, the death of Alejandro Labaka in 1987 and recent attacks on loggers in the area, to discover that these events are linked to the history of uncontacted peoples in Ecuador.

A well-known filmmaker follows a famous mountain climber to Nepal, documenting the journey. Conversations about their lives lead to philosophical reflections, as the mountain challenges their motives. As days go by, the higher altitude and the depletion of oxygen will raise their debate to interior and transcendental territories, putting at stake their trajectories and their egos when facing the mountain and its millenary depth.

Filmmaker José Cardoso’s deeply personal Flowers is an exercise in sense-making, led by both his conscious and unconscious mind. Navigating the barrage of online news images produced each day, he transforms these into an unexpected web of connections that link an Amazonian community threatened with the destruction of their land to an extreme right-wing Brazilian President who justifies the exploitation of the Amazon by the rising price of resources precipitated by the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches us to make our enemy the object of our compassion, and the filmmaker’s three-year-old son marvels at the frogs and flowers growing in the garden.

When the colourful ice-cream van rides through the deserted streets of the village, there are no children trailing behind it. In Plazuela, a peaceful hamlet lost in a mountainous region of Ecuador, only a handful of old ladies remain, who are all widows. In the gloom of their houses, photos of those who are gone hang on walls: husbands who have passed away a few years earlier, children gone to work in the big cities or abroad, and grandchildren who have grown up far away from them.

Chronicle of the judicial process for the murder of 16-year-old student Paúl Guañuna, committed by police officers in 2007. The fight of a father and thousands of young people against racism, authoritarianism and impunity.

Children playing

Daily life in the city of Quito, Gauyaquil and Ibarra.

Ecuadorian athlete Millán Ludeña, embarks on his new adventure to be the first athlete to register a new Guinness World Record for his beloved country.

Is there an audience for Latin American movies? These are some of the questions posed by an Ecuadorian filmmaker whose latest movie was a commercial flop. He embarks on a query to find answers to his questions and relief for his despair. His research leads him to a giant contraband market in the port city of Guayaquil, where pirated movies from all over the world are sold for one dollar each. Here, he discovers a number of Ecuadorian low budget movies produced by amateurs, with titles he had never heard of before: from action packed productions to evangelical melodramas.

Beyond being a historical record, this film explores the implied duality of Rafael Correa's public figure. The behind-the-scenes 2013 presidential re-election race, in campaign-distant black and white invites us to reflect on Ecuador's way of doing politics.

In order to rescue his father's ramshackle grill restaurant, filmmaker and vegetarian Dario Aguirre is traveling back to his homeland Ecuador. What starts out as a strange debate about opening times, chips and Excel spread sheets, develops into a moving family drama.

Ladies acting and blowing kisses.

Scenes of daily life in the Indian communities of Ecuador.

Faces of walkers in Alameda Park

Reception with Ambassadors to Ecuador when President Isidro Ayora took office. Aspects of Public Administration in education and health.

Professional bullfight Plaza Belmonte

Airmen and friends at Hacienda San Carlos

Paseo de las banderillas announcing the bulls

Charlie Chaplin look-a-like doing bullfighting.

Centenary Festivals 1822.

Cathedral and Plaza Grande

Ingratiation of Simón Bolívar

Filmmaker María Fernanda Restrepo reconstructs events that led to her older brothers' murders at the hands of Ecuadorian police.

Church, Portería and Convent of San Francisco

Ballroom dancing

Driving a machine

Arch of the Queen

Civil military and religious authorities

Hall dance 1929

Woman and man on horseback

Fishing boat

Aerial views of the city of Quito

Indigenous women at Lake San Pablo

People watching the plane

Parade with portrait of Eloy Alfaro

Burial of Archbishop Manuel Maria Polit Laso (October 1932)

Plane flight.

Three couples rehearse a scene in the car.

Faces Bullfighters

Cosme Renella entering the plane.

Road construction

Arch of Santo Domingo The Tram

Indigenous Feasts of the Black Mama Pujilí

Doctors Meeting

The Hippodrome

Oswaldo Guayasamín, one of the most renowned Latin American artists, with more than 600 portraits in his pictorial career, (among which are F. Mitterrand, Carolina de Mónaco, Juan Carlos I, Rigoberta Menchu) paints his self-portrait, while he tells us the foundations of his art.

Documentary about a slaughterhouse in Quito, where hundreds of people and entire families work everyday. The smell of the place is warm and penetrating, the noise is intense, everything is red. Would that much effort and death have an ulterior purpose?

Stories told by sailors who spend a life of loneliness and nostalgia several months of the year sailing a ship to support their homes. And they look forward to being able to reunite with their families. Through the testimony of Hector Murillo and his companions, this documentary addresses the life of a sailor in his usual environment, a ship.

On January 3, 2001 in Lorca there was a traffic accident that caused 12 deaths who were Ecuadorians, worked in agricultural fields and were in an irregular situation in Spain. This documentary reflects the harsh reality experienced by dozens of illegal Ecuadorians offering much cheaper labor in Spain.

An ordinary day in the life of a community on the Santa Elena Peninsula, on the Ecuadorian coast. The many characters in this documentary –simple people, heir to an ancient culture– present the true protagonist: death.

Documentary that focus on the lives of three Ecuadorian migrants. It is a portrait of the suffering, the effort and nostalgia of the Ecuadorians who arrived in Spain during the migratory wave of 1999 and 2000.

A group of Indigenous Achuar children that moves self-determined through the endless green. Along the course of the Pastaza river, on the border between Ecuador and Peru, they catch fish, hunt and cook, play with lianas and watch videos on their smartphones. Director Inês T. Alves respectfully follows the everyday life of this young collective living in deep connection with one another and with the environment.

Since colonial times, the indigenous people of the Andean mountains have ascended to peaks that reach 5,200 meters above sea level. There, they crush gigantic blocks of ice that carry on their backs to sell them later in the fairs of Riobamba and Guaranda. The film shows the living conditions of the communities that live from this activity.