Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Indigenous peoples across South America have been reclaiming and reinterpreting their cultural heritage through social struggles, academic research, and political and constitutional processes, proposing alternative models of society better suited to the challenges of our time.
Between 2008 and 2009, Ecuador and Bolivia adopted new constitutions that embraced the values of the Indigenous cosmovision for the first time, marking a shift from an anthropocentric worldview toward one based on harmony among humans and with nature. El Buen Vivir explores this process of societal transformation.
The documentary follows the Qhapaq Ñan, the legendary Inca initiatory trail crossing the Andes, using this ancient path as a narrative and conceptual framework. Along the journey, the film explores key principles of Andean thought, from ayni, the ancestral practice of mutual support encountered in the Salinas de Maras, to sentipensar, a concept that unites thought and feeling and offers new perspectives on sustainable development.