After Evita - Evo, the Movie, Puts Bolivia on Map

The script might sound familiar: a South American nation in turmoil, a leader from humble origins who becomes a hero to the poor, and the story made into a movie. No, not Evita, this is Evo.

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is about to become one of the few serving heads of state to have a feature film made about his life. Evo Pueblo, which could be translated as Evo of the People, is about to wrap up shooting and should be in cinemas by the end of the year.

The ingredients of a great tale are certainly there. A coca farmer from an impoverished backwater who grew up under a straw roof, Juan Evo Morales Ayma was also a bricklayer and trumpet player before becoming a trade union activist and entering politics. Since being elected president in 2005 he has caused a stir by challenging the Europeanized elite, nationalizing gasfields and espousing the leftwing radicalism of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.

The British film production company Buena Onda, which was involved in the commercially and critically successful film City of God, has partly funded the film, according to the Spanish daily El País.

The Bolivian director, Tonchi Antezana, said it would not be a hagiography. "It doesn't try to to elevate Evo to a superhero, nor denigrate him as person. It's simply a story."

Since last December Mr Antezana has filmed on location in Bolivia with a tight budget, 53 actors, most of them novices, and more than 1,000 extras.

A central theme will be the political awakening of the indigenous majority. From a marginalized community of impoverished farmers in dusty highlands it has become a powerful grassroots movement which swept Mr Morales to office.

He has since clashed with the white-skinned establishment elite and championed the traditional uses of the coca leaf in defiance of US efforts to eradicate it as the main ingredient of cocaine. Critics say the president is intolerant and divisive but he remains popular with his rural base.

The film steals a march on the Bolivian president's ally and mentor, Mr Chávez, who once said the US director Oliver Stone was planning to make a biopic about him.

A keen footballer, last week he played a match on an Andean mountain peak 5,270m (17,300 feet) above sea level to protest at a recent Fifa ban on high altitude international matches, which the football authority said was dangerous to health. Mr Morales scored four goals.