Our latest Guardian documentary tells the story of Lupita, a courageous young Tzotzil-Maya woman at the forefront of a Mexican indigenous movement. Over twenty years after Lupita lost her family in the Acteal massacre in southern Mexico, she has become a spokesperson for her people and for a new generation of Mayan activists. She balances the demands of motherhood with her high-stakes efforts to re-educate and restore justice to the world. The film-maker Monica Wise talks to us about her experience making the film.
What led you to this project?
I was inspired by this historic movement led by indigenous women. I’d spent time in Latin America since childhood and that helped shape my understanding of injustice. I’d learned about the EZLN in college, but I wanted to know what was behind the Zapatista spectacle, and Lupita captivated me with her discourse and strength. I knew immediately that she could be the one to tell the story of 500 years of indigenous resistance, in a contemporary Mexican political context, to a global audience.
I teamed up with a local journalist, Eduardo “Lalo” Gutiérrez Pérez, who heads up the communication team for Las Abejas de Acteal, Lupita’s organisation. Lalo was thankfully eager to collaborate and had footage from Marichuy’s tour as well as many other demonstrations during the last few years. Lalo produced and shot the film with me, and translated the Tsotsil to Spanish.
What are your memories of filming with Lupita?
Since 2017, I’d spent several weeks, then months in Chiapas getting to know Lupita and her family. The most memorable shoot was our first one: Lupita speaking to a vast audience in that Oventic Zapatista caracol. When Lupita took to the stage with her powerful speech, she began in Tsotsil and continued in Spanish: “My words are true because I lived it, I wasn’t told about it, I was present … So it’s not hard for me to believe that injustices like these continue around the world.” Many in the audience talked about her for days after: “What a force”, “She’s the survivor of Acteal”…
Your creative treatment is unique. How did you discover the style and form of the film?
I went back and forth between a slow-paced and lyrical portrait (like the Mexican documentaries Tempestad, A Morir a los Desiertos, Kings of Nowhere) and a more informational, faster cut (while still driven lyrically), which Mar Jardiel, my final editor, recut in an impressive two weeks. The idea was to put a viewer in Lupita’s reality for a few moments, whether you are a Mexican who remembers the Acteal massacre, or an international viewer who had never heard of Zapatistas. And we had to keep it short!
I wanted to use Super 8 film from the beginning and to make a film somewhat from Lupita’s point of view to begin to understand who is the woman, the mother, behind the vocera, or the spokeswoman, of her community. The past still hangs over Acteal, where the community continues to hold ceremonies to remember the 45 victims, or martyrs, of the massacre every month. Every time I walked into the community, I’d enter a different world, with different timing, in another language. So the textured film felt fitting to represent this.
What impact do you hope the film will have?
We made the film so that Lupita’s voice could be heard, reach new and international audiences, and raise awareness of Lupita and her community’s struggle. There has been no justice for the Acteal massacre, the attack by paramilitaries that killed 45 people in Lupita’s home town in 1997, including her mother and father. Those who ordered the killings have not been held accountable. The Mexican government recently offered an amicable solution, or solución amistosa, or reparations to a group of survivors with the pretence of justice being served. Las Abejas de Acteal continue to demand a report from Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and will not rest until justice is served in court. They believe this can only happen internationally.
I know work on the film isn’t finished until it gets to the right people, those who tell their own story in the film, so we’re fundraising and planning a tour in the highlands with Lupita, Lalo and the Abejas organisation for later in 2021. You can join us here.
Our first and only live theatre screening was in Kinoki, the only local theatre in San Cristobal de las Casas, in December 2019. Several members of the crew came, the theatre was packed, and the film received a great response. It was there, with the applause and appreciative Q&A, that I think Lupita realised that her message would be valued locally and around the world, that her sacrifices and all the uncomfortable time behind the camera would be worth it when her message could affect more people.
A few weeks later, on the anniversary of the Acteal massacre, Lupita and Lalo presented it to the Abejas community in Acteal, in a stadium filled with survivors and also Tsotsil youth who didn’t know much about their history.
Then Covid hit and we had the world premiere with the Ambulante film festival [the Mexican travelling film festival founded by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna] in May 2020, which was moved online. It seemed to resonate here in Mexico above all, even for those who didn’t know much about the history, and this is another achievement.
The film had its international premiere online as part of the Sheffield documentary film festival and recently had its New York premiere at Doc NYC. And we won best documentary in the emerging category at the March on Washington international film festival. Our in-person screenings list can be found here.
About the film-maker
Monica Wise Robles is a Colombian American documentary filmmaker and journalist based in Mexico City. Much of her work focuses on women’s rights in Latin America, exposing human rights abuses through the eyes of female survivors. Lupita, her first short documentary, about a Tsostil Maya activist, is part of the official selection for the following festivals: Ambulante, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Doc NYC and FICG official selection. She is an International Women’s Media Foundation, Ford Foundation and Sundance Film Institute grantee. Monica’s work can be seen in the Guardian, the Intercept, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, PBS and the BBC, among other outlets. She is a member of the Brown Girls Doc Mafia and the Video Consortium Mexico.
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