Alfredo Ovando Candia was a military general who served as Co-President of Bolivia from 1965–66 (and again from 1969–70) after overthrowing sitting President Víctor Paz Estenssoro. His political and military service connected him to the largest massacre of workers in the country’s history, as well as the military campaign in which Che Guevara was killed. Incorporating archival footage recorded during Ovando’s de facto government, home movies, and interviews with relatives, filmmaker Mauricio Alfredo Ovando’s debut feature studies the many profiles of his grandfather to juxtapose his family’s memories with the official history. Winner of the Best Director and FIPRESCI awards at the 2018 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, Still Burn is a courageous, perceptive documentary about how collective and personal memories are created from—and ultimately shape—a complicated legacy. 

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BEST DIRECTOR and FIPRESCI AWARD at BAFICI 2018

BEST FILM at TRANSCINEMA 2018

BEST FILM and BEST SCRIPT at PREMIOS PLURINACIONALES EDUARDO ABAROA 2018

BEST FEATURE at FESTIVAL DE CINE DE TUCUMÁN 2019

BEST DOCUMENTARY (MEJOR DOCUMENTAL at FICSUR 2018

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE at EPA CINE 2019

BEST FEATURE at DIABLO DE ORO 2018

“A film about the infinite images of my grandfather, recorded during his de facto military government in Bolivia at the end of the 1960s. My family’s version is confronted with the official history: The massacres of miners, the nationalization of oil,  Che Guevara and the Teoponte guerrilla. As in the movies of celluloid, every time I stop to look at an image more carefully, something burns inside me.”

(Mauricio Alfredo Ovando)

Mauricio Alfredo Ovando (1986, La Paz, Bolivia) studied Film Direction at the Bolivian Catholic University, the Master of Creative Documentary at the Buenos Aires Film Observatory, Argentina and Advanced Cinematography at the International Cinema and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. ‘Algo Quema’ (Still Burn) is his first film as a director.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is a film/video programmer, cultural promoter and arts consultant based in New York City. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Film at Lincoln Center, and BAMcinématek. Along with Mahen Bonetti, he curated the 53rd edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He serves in the board of directors of Film Forum, is a contributing editor to BOMB Magazine, and has served as a member of the jury and the selection committees for various international film festivals including Morelia, Seattle, Margaret Mead, SANFIC, and DocsDF, among others. He has served as both expert nominator and panelist for the Rockefeller Fellowship Program for Mexican Film & Media Arts and for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, as well as a screening panelist for the Oscars’ Academy Awards for film students. He holds MA in Cinema Studies from New York University and a BA in Communications from Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City).