ACTRESS Sandra Bullock, as an American political strategist, plots the defeat of Evo Morales in Bolivia’s 2002 presidential ballot in “Our Brand Is Crisis,” which premiered at the Toronto film festival Saturday.

    The fictionalized account of the election is based on a 2005 documentary of the same name about how U.S. Democratic Party strategist James Carville helped Morales’ opponent Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada come from behind to beat the frontrunner in the campaign.

    In real life, Morales picked himself up and returned a few years later to become Bolivia’s first indigenous president, for three terms.

    Bullock, who was back in Toronto following last year’s blockbuster hit “Gravity,” said she asked producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov to consider changing the lead character to a woman for her, and they did.

    She noted “an explosion” in the number of meaty female roles in film and television of late. “It’s good that we’re seeing that change,” she said.

    On the surface, “Our Brand Is Crisis” is a sharp critique of American, no-holds-barred electoral campaigns and candidates who manipulate the truth in order to win. More broadly, it strikes at all deceitful marketing.(SD-Agencies)