United Notions Film is an award-winning film and creative technology studio based in Bolivia and Australia, founded in 2006 by Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw.
We make documentaries, virtual reality experiences and cinematic installations. We run a lab that develops cinema systems, AI and robotics.
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People with disabilities march across the Andes to La Paz to demand a pension.La Lucha, 2023A woman in a pink hat speaks into a megaphone.A 3D character with a silver mask over half the face, a blue hoodie and a woven sash.La Lucha, 2023A man in a green hat and blue sunglasses stands in front of police shields.La Lucha, 2023People in wheelchairs travel along a mountain road. One of them waves. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.From the labA turquoise 3D gecko on a monitor. From the lab note The gecko learns to feel, Qwen finds its voice.La Lucha, 2023A filmmaker kneels with a camera beside men in wheelchairs. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.From the labA silver 3D model of a jaguar in the Blender viewport. From the lab note The body decides the interface, 2026.Yakumama, coming in 2026A 3D model of a whale floats above a grid under a blue sky. From the lab note The whale that watches back, 2026.From the labA 3D bird with a long beak spreads its wings. From the lab note The water lily learns to breathe.La Lucha, 2023Marchers rest beside the road under a deep blue sky. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.From the labA 3D bird with a long beak beside a red-spined cactus flower. From the lab note The water lily learns to breathe.Stolen, 2009Poster of Stolen.Cocaine Prison, 2017Men stand in a narrow prison courtyard. San Sebastián prison, Cochabamba.
“Far from stereotypes like Narcos, Cocaine Prison is intense, a real feminist film”
Moustique, on Cocaine PrisonThree people pose in front of a TIFF backdrop. Toronto International Film Festival.
Three Norwegian teenagers are arrested in Bolivia with 22 kilos of cocaine. The film follows how the media shaped each of their cases.From the labThe rig of a 3D spider in Blender. From the lab note The spider learns to weave, the gecko learns to feel.
Filmed inside San Sebastián prison in Cochabamba, in part by the inmates themselves.
Imagination is the key.
La Lucha, 2023Protesters in wheelchairs raise their arms by a wire fence, under an embroidered banner.From the labA 3D scene seen through a spider web: an orange orchid, a silver spider and floating screens. From the lab note The spider learns to weave, the gecko learns to feel.Las Awichas, 2024Augmented reality sculptures of a silver llama and giant blue mushrooms in a plaza, with the Surreality logo. Surreality, HKUST (Guangzhou), 2025. The llama is one of the 3D animated characters by Brian Condori Marza.Prison X, 2021Poster of Prison X.
“Captured a state of dream logic I crave in VR.”
Forbes, on Prison XLa Lucha, 2023Poster of La Lucha.Las Awichas, 2024A person stands below a large Las Awichas panel on a stone building at night. Eight silver robotic animals surround the face of a grandmother. The Strand, King's College London, 2024. 3D animated characters by Brian Condori Marza.A person stands in front of a Sundance Film Festival marquee at dusk. Sundance Film Festival.La Lucha, 2023A lone protester holds a handwritten sign and a Bolivian flag on the altiplano. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.La Lucha, 2023A long line of people in wheelchairs and on foot carries Bolivian flags across the altiplano. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.A drawn woman with jaguar spots on her face, between pale tree trunks.A woman in a sequined dress on a TIFF red carpet. Toronto International Film Festival.Two people stand beside a small plane on a dry airfield.Three silhouettes stand on a ridge under an amber sky.La Lucha, 2023A person carries a camera across the altiplano. The march to La Paz, Bolivia, 2016.The Bolivian Case, 2015Poster of The Bolivian Case.The Bolivian Case, 2015A woman lies in a hospital bed in handcuffs.Yakumama, coming in 2026A translucent 3D-printed whale glows orange on a workbench. Yakumama in the making, 2026.A woman in profile wears a helmet with a camera mounted in front of her face.Cocaine Prison, 2017A prison courtyard seen from above, crowded with people, stalls and tin roofs. San Sebastián prison, Cochabamba.
A documentary on slavery in the Sahrawi refugee camps.Prison X, 2021A visitor in a VR headset holds two controllers in front of woven textiles.
“Asserts Indigenous cosmologies erased from digital media.”
Art in America, on Prison XYakumama, coming in 2026A 3D whale and a robot in front of a striped setting sun. From the lab note The water lily learns to breathe.Portrait of a woman in a rose-print shirt in front of red neon.
The Global South builds its own future.
Prison X, 2021A collage of masked dancers, a visitor in a VR headset and cut-out figures in a 3D gallery.Huk the Jaguaress, 2025Two people stand under a CPH:DOX neon sign on a red wall. One raises an arm. CPH:DOX, Copenhagen.From the labA 3D scene with an orchid, a hummingbird and a walking figure under a white sun. From the lab note The spider learns to weave, the gecko learns to feel.Todo Nace Desde Lo Pequeño, 2025Two figures wrapped in red woven cloth crouch on a yellow and black checked floor. El Martadero, Cochabamba, 2025.La Lucha, 2023A crowd watches an outdoor screen in a plaza at night.Huk the Jaguaress, 2025Three visitors stand before a screen showing a golden jaguar, inside a white tent with lit plinths.
The short film of that same march.La Lucha, 2023A woman wrapped in a pink blanket sits in a wheelchair at night.Prison X, 2021The Prison X booth at an exhibition.The Fight, 2017A man shouts beside a wire fence at night.
“The most politically explosive documentary of 2017”
No Film School, on The FightA selfie of two people at an awards backdrop. A third person stands behind them.La Lucha, 2023A woman in a wheelchair speaks into a microphone.A woman speaks to microphones and cameras in front of a wall of red-tinted photographs.Cocaine Prison, 2017A man points a small camera at the viewer. Another man watches from behind. San Sebastián prison, Cochabamba.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother in a hat and a red and black shawl.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother in a striped pink shawl.Prison X, 2021A generated image of a person in a VR headset surrounded by neon textile patterns.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother. Her striped shawl dissolves into streaks of colour.A man wears a VR headset and headphones in front of a curtain and a bright screen. Forum des images, Paris.Photo: Maxime Raynault, Forum des images
A virtual reality experience set in a Bolivian prison.Prison X, 2021A blue jaguar with white whiskers in front of a red curtain, on black.A talk on a stage under a large screen that shows a 3D scene.La Lucha, 2023A woman in a wheelchair raises her fist.
Technology is a tool.
Las Awichas, 2024A silver robotic gecko sits on an open hand, in blue light. Las Awichas in augmented reality. 3D animated character by Brian Condori Marza.
An augmented reality installation. Eight AI-generated Andean grandmothers, each with a robotic animal spirit.Three filmmakers stand close together with cameras and microphones.The Fight, 2017Three people talk on a CNN studio set. A CNN studio.Cocaine Prison, 2017Poster of Cocaine Prison.Huk the Jaguaress, 2025A silhouette stands before a screen of blue jungle. Plants sit on lit white plinths. NewImages Festival, Forum des images, Paris, 2025.Photo: Maxime Raynault, Forum des images
A live performance where Andean cosmology meets AI. Four dancers embody Earth, Water, Wind and Jaguar.A white animal sculpture lies on a bed of moss beside a candle and a gold-framed mirror.La Lucha, 2023A full plaza watches a film on an outdoor screen at night. The Bolivian premiere of La Lucha, in a central plaza, 2024.Todo Nace Desde Lo Pequeño, 2025A figure wrapped in red striped cloth sits on a yellow and black checked floor. El Martadero, Cochabamba, 2025.The Fight, 2017Poster of The Fight.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother with windswept hair, in black and white.A dark hall with a lit screen. Small glowing animal figures stand on either side.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother with braids. A ribbon of light crosses the frame.Las Awichas, 2024Poster of Las Awichas.Las Awichas, 2024An AI-generated Andean grandmother in a knitted hat, in black and white.
“This is a hell of a tale. It’s a magnificent tale about the fight for what is right. I was moved.”
Steve Kopian, Unseen Films
“The heroes featured here show the full swath of how a fight like this can both elevate and break down the human spirit and makes 'The Fight' be a title with two meanings; the fight against the system, and the fight to not give up.”
Juan J. Arroyo, Rolling Stone
“An artful witness to a revolution and involve us all.”
“Suspenseful, scary, and displaying personal bravery by Ayala and Fallshaw.”
Seattle International Film Festival
“The existence of modern slavery has been detailed in books like Kevin Bales’s Disposable People, but rarely has it been covered on film as intimately as in Stolen.”
“Las Awichas by Violeta Ayala offers a thoughtful use of AI and XR from a much-needed Indigenous perspective. The work proposes enchanting interactions with mystical, yet technological animal spirits and Quechua cosmology. The superposition of AR amulets on matriarchal portraits bridges the ancestral to the present. Activated on the body, these become intimate experiences that evoke a resonant world we wanted to return to.”
Huk the Jaguaress recovered her twenty-four real poses from an export that only looked finished: a faithful carousel exposed a smooth interpolation, an exporter rewritten to read the rig’s true keyframes brought the body back, and the question turned from how she moves to why.
YakuMama reads the colour of the room and answers with mood and song, decaying and reweighting ten emotions every frame, diving when the water is taken and singing when the rain comes, all running locally on one machine with no cloud.
The gecko learns finger puppeteering, the monkey begins to mirror directly, Huk the Jaguaress discovers her own skeletal logic, and a taxonomy of locomotion emerges.
