Throughout the year craftsmen and ordinary citizens of all levels of skill prepare miniatures to be sold in the streets of La Paz, Bolivia during the annual Alasitas festival in January. The miniatures are of food, cars, homes, building tools, computers, diplomas, condoms; they run the gamut of human needs and desires and are purchased for a nominal fee by those who wish to acquire the reality that the miniature represents.

A tradition of the indigenous Aymara community of the Andes, the central idea of the event is Reciprocity and Exchange. You cannot, for example, make a miniature of your own, rather you acquire one through exchange, i.e., in this day and age, the exchange of money. After a miniature is bought, it must be blessed—by a shaman (yatiri), a Catholic priest, or both as this is a pre-Columbian ritual that has been absorbed into the local Catholic lexicon. Noon is the most potent hour for dreams to be blessed and fulfilled, although blessings do go on throughout the day.

The miniatures are often “carried” or protected under the auspices of the Ekeko, a pre-Columbian god of good fortune and abundance. The Ekeko’s generative powers activate the miniatures in his care—in exchange for favors bestowed upon him by a person who keeps his image.

Peruvian-American filmmaker and artist Patricia Soledad Llosa captures the flow and feeling of this unique ritual day in her short film LITTLE WISHES. She takes the viewer along as, like most inhabitants of La Paz on that day, she shops for miniature representations of her dreams. In a quick succession of sensitive encounters, we meet fellow shoppers and dreamers, sellers, and an elderly shaman—and experience first-hand the wonder of this vibrant and compelling cultural tradition.