Before the first image hits the screen, director Icíar Bollaín sets the ideological tone for Even the Rain: A title card dedicates the film to Howard Zinn, the leftist historian and activist. Resoundingly anti-corporatist, anti-imperialist, and anti-globalization, one suspects Zinn would have been a fan of the film had it been made a year earlier.

This is the sort of film that might be a real slog, even for those inclined to agree with the politics it proudly wears on its sleeve. While it doesn’t entirely escape all those pitfalls, Bollaín, along with writer Paul Laverty — well known for his activist-minded screenwriting through his frequent collaborations with Ken Loach — make the political personal enough that it largely avoids sermonizing.

The story follows a European film crew on location in Bolivia, making a movie about Christopher Columbus. Their director is a passionate young filmmaker, Sebastián (Gael García Bernal), who is aided by a get-it-done-at-all-costs (as long as those costs are cheap) producer, Costa (Luis Tosar). The film within a film is as political as Even the Rain: Sebastián wants to be honest about Columbus’ brutality towards the native populations of the Americas, and lionize the Dominican friar, Antonio de Montesinos, who stood up against the Spanish policy of enslavement.