• GRITO de PIEDRA NEWTON film Documentary
  • grito-de-piedra-miquel-dirty
  • grito-de-piedra-gavino-mine
  • grito-de-piedra-simon-wasted
  • grito-de-piedra-gavino-mine

GRITO de PIEDRA

Tourism becomes the miners new vein, when Lonely planet discovers the fascinating hardships of the silvermine. This lyrical documentary with social economical undertone, resists the temptation of interview.

In an observing way GRITO de PIEDRA (SCREAM of the STONE) gives an inside view of the lives of Gavino and Pedro Montes. Gavino is a miner in the Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia. His son Pedro, a 23 year old student, works as a tourist guide in the same mine. Over the last decade, tourism has discovered Potosí and the fascinating hardships of the silver mine. Already, tourism has left its marks on the town and its people.

GRITO de PIEDRA trailer


GRITO de PIEDRA behind the scenes

From the director

Gavino and me. We spent a lot of time together, which was needed to get the best result for the film. In the beginning he and his family were very much aware of me and the camera, but after a while I could start the real filming. In the end it was really difficult to ‘make an appointment’, because he and his colleagues were drunk most of the time (and nobody knew where they were.)

Miguel and Gavino are rolling a real Dutch cigarette that I brought from Holland.
Miguel is the brother of Inez (so that makes him Gavino’s brother-in-law). After Gavino’s first wife died, he remarried with Inez. Pedro (the tourist guide) is his son from his first marriage. Gavino and Inez have 6 more children of which Ariel is the youngest. He became three during the shooting.

To break the ice and to get to know the family, you sometimes have to literally play along. The children were playing ‘blind cow’ outside: a game where you get blindfolded and have to seek the rest. Everyone was very much enjoyed when the tall Dutch guy plays along. Gavino has nine children and I tried to exclude most of them from the film; otherwise it would have been much too complicated (for the viewer).

When Etienne (assistant) first left Potosí, Tanja took over. We had a lot in common and working together went amazingly great. She is a 29 years old Austrian girl that lived in Holland for the last six years to study anthropology. Supporting the film was a good experience for her and I could not have done this without her. When she left after a few weeks, Etienne took over again and there was still much work to do.

‘La Plata’ was my favourite restaurant in Potosí. It was too cold to work in the hostel, so I had to flee to bars or restaurants, that aren’t the best place to work. In this restaurant I spotted most of the material. Here I also discovered that crucial scenes were completely ruined, because of the dust in the camera. I tried to arrange another camera at the local television station. The only camera they had available, was an 1ccd home video camera, which I already brought myself. In the end, an air compressor combined with the 95% alcohol did the job and we could continue the shooting.

After more than 3 weeks translating (of sometimes 14 hours a day) I was exhausted. José Luis (in the picture) was the best translator out of seven that I had worked with. The first translators we worked with actually didn’t speak good Quechua. But because they wanted to make some money, they just created their own story and made something up. We had more than 22 hours to translate. Most of it was a ‘drunk- coca leaves- spanish- quechua mix’. Even Pedro (Gavino’s son) sometimes could not understand what his drunk father was saying.

This is in the third hostel “Maria Victorie”. The longest I stayed in “Compania de Jesus”, but after a while I tried to bypass the routine by just checking in other hostels. The last few days I even stayed in a hotel…. were my money got stolen.

This photo isn’t exaggerating. The last few weeks it was getting colder and colder. Etienne and I had to sleep with our clothes, socks and cap on.

Jackeline -one of the translators- used the Buen Gusto (95% pure alcohol) to warm up her place and we followed her example. With the door and windows closed it would get a little warmer, but there was also even less oxygen. At an altitude of 4200 meters, there is already 60% less oxygen in the air.
By burning alcohol in the room at night, it was indeed a bit warmer, but you’d really wake up with an headache in the morning.

GRITO de PIEDRA credits

60 minutes, November 2006

PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY
TON VAN ZANTVOORT

CINEMATOGRAPHY & EDITING BY
TON VAN ZANTVOORT

SOUND & FIRST ASSISTANT
TANJA PLASIL
ETIENNE VAN NULAND

MUSIC COMPOSED BY
NICO-JAN VAN DE KOOT

TRANSLATION BY
JOSÉ LUIS BURGOS GARCIA
JACKELIN GUITIERREZ
PEDRO MONTES
KOEN LANGEVELD
ETIENNE VAN NULAND
FLEUR HENKES

SUPPORT & ADVISE
WOUTER VERHOEVEN, GIEL VAN SCHAIJK
MARCEL MELCHERS, STIJN VAN EEKELEN
ANNEROSE LANGEVELD, MARIJKE DE BIE

SPECIAL THANKS TO
THE FAMILY MONTES
GAVINO, INES, JEMENA, PEDRO, ELIZED
EMILENE, DELIA, GENARO, SOLEDAD
SIRLEY, ARIEL & FELIX

MIGUEL SEVERINO & ALICIA
SIMON, SABINA & JAIME CHOQUE

THE GUIDES
EFRAIN MAMANI, ROLANDO COLQUE
PEDRO (BLANCO) MONTES, WILBER &
EDUARDO GARNICA

THE TOURISTS
MARIO CASTEXS, SAMUEL JAKOBSSON
CHRISTOFFER KREWER, SONJA KEFFER
ADRIAN McCORMICK, CARMEL WIGGINS

ALSO THANKS TO
RICARDO ARANSILIVIA, LA CASERO
VIVI CARVAJAL, RICHARD LADKANI
KATHERINE HOURELD, COMZINC SRL
MARGRET KAMPHUIS
&
FAM VAN ZANTVOORT, FAM LANGEVELD
MARIJN VAN KREIJ, BAS VAN GENUGTEN
SABRINA SANCHEZ, TOINE DE JONG
KURT COOIJMANS, RITA STOFMEEL
ARAM VOERMANS, FRANK VAN MOURIK
ILONA VAN DER REIJT, NGN PRODUKTIES
YVETTE SIERRA PRAELI, FLEUR HENKES
ANNEROSE LANGEVELD AND EVERYBODY
THAT MADE THIS FILM POSSIBLE

FINANCIAL SUPPORT BY
FONDS BKVB
THUISKOPIE FONDS
NBKS

ISAN 0000-0003-DFF3-0000-D-0000-0000-Z

GRITO de PIEDRA screenings

Channel Day Date Time Additional
 VPRO  Sunday  04-03-2018  21:01  NPO Cultura
 VPRO  Tuesday  06-03-2018  17:55  NPO Cultura
 VPRO  Wednesday  07-03-2018  14:01  NPO Cultura
 VPRO  Friday  09-03-2018  14:21  NPO Cultura
NPO Doc Saturday 07-02-’15  17:11
NPO Doc Sunday 08-02-’15 05:43
NPO Doc Tuesday 10-02-’15 17:17
NPO Doc Wednesday 11-02-’15 21:23
NPO Doc Thursday 12-02-’15 16:13
NPO Doc Friday 13-02-’15 06:31
Previous  screenings
IDFA- Documentary Festival Amsterdam World Premiere IDFA
City 2
Calypso
City 4
City 3

Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Holland
Sat
Tues
Wed
Fri

Nov 25
Nov 28
Nov 29
Dec 01

17.00
14.00
20.30
20.15
ecofilm & video art festival Ecofilms festival Rhodos Greece Wed Jun 20 17:20
Festival de los derechos humanos Festival de Cine y video
de los derechos humanos
Sucre/
Potosi
Bolivia Mon July 30
Aug 29
19:00
NFF - Nederlands Film Festival Netherlands Film Festival
Hoogt 2
Hoogt 3
Hoogt 3
Louis Hartlooper Complex 4
Utrecht The Netherlands Thur
Fri
Sun
Mon
Sep 27
Sep 28
Sep 30
Oct 01
16:00
18:00
22:15
11:45
DOCSDF Festival International
de Cine Documental
Mexico Mexico Sat Sept 29
MEDIMED Medimed market Sitges Spain Sat Oct 12
Astra film Astra film Sibiu Romania Oct 22-28
Margaret Mead Film & Video Fetsival Margaret Mead Film &
Video Festival
New York U.S.A. Nov 10 16:15
groene engel logo Groene Engel Film Festival Oss The Netherlands Sun

Mon

Tue

July 19

July 20

July 21

20.45

20.30

21.45

Paru- Film Festival - GRITO de PIEDRA Pärnu International
Documentary & Anthropology
Film Festival 2009
Pärnu Estonia July 5-

July 26

Etnia Film Festival-Turku-Finland EFF2009 – Etnia

Film Festival 2009

Turku Finland October 8-

October 11

Filmfoyer Tilburg The Netherlands
Tues
April 10 19.45
Plaza Futura Eindhoven Plaza Futura Eindhoven The Netherlands Thurs April 19 21.15
Verkade fabriek Verkadefabriek Den Bosch The Netherlands Wed April 25 19.45
Filtheater Fanfare Filmtheater Fanfare Oudenbosch The Netherlands Thurs April 26 20.15
Chassé Theater Breda Chassé Cinema Breda The Netherlands Sun May 6 16.30
Tac - Eindhoven TAC Eindhoven The Netherlands Fri May 11 20.00
Electron Breda Electron Breda The Netherlands Fri May 25 20.30
Film Foyer Tilburg Filmfoyer Tilburg The Netherlands Tues
May 29 19.45
Rechten faculteit Leiden The Netherlands Thur feb 7 16:30
Mathers Museum of
World Cultures
Bloomington, Indiana USA March
21- 30
Savoy Theater,
Green Mountain Film Festival
Montpelier, Vermont USA March 24-30
South Florida Museum
Bradenton, Florida USA March 4-
April 1
Dutchess Community College Poughkeepsie,
New York
USA Feb 21-April 25
Field Museum
Chicago,
Illinois
USA Sept 28

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