Friday October 4 at 8 PM

Doors 7:30 pm; $5 suggested donation

Roberto Rochín’s 1986 award-winning documentary film on the Mesoamérican ball game Ulama screens at the Echo Park Film Center!

Ulama chronicles the rich and sacred history of Ollamaliztli starting with its origin stories as documented in the Popol Vuh and concluding with its resurgence in modern times. We visit the ancient ball courts which appear in what is now known as Arizona to Central America and see how the sacred rubber balls are created. Shot on 35mm, Ulama: The Game of Life and Death is a treat to both the senses and the soul!

“Niman tlanahuatiyaya, inic ollamaloz, inic teellacuahuaya, inic tepaquiltiyaya tlatoani: quinnahuatiyaya in calpixque, inic quihualcuizque in olli, ihuan nelpiloni, ihuan quecehuatl, ihuan mayehuatl”

“Then commanded that the ball game be played, in order to animate the people and divert them. He commanded that the majordomos to take out the rubber ball, and the girdles, and the leather hip guards, and the leather gloves”

Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 — Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 58.

Production Format: 35mm. Screening Format: DVD. TRT: 110 min.

Language: Spanish with English subtitles

*be advised there is some nudity 

No Events