How does the documentary “Por la vida” come about?

In August 2018 I was invited to participate as a teacher at the “Mesoamerican School for Indigenous, Black and Farmer Women of Central America and the South of Mexico”. I traveled to Honduras for the first time, a country of which little was known in these lands, but which began to feature in the media when the news hit that hundreds of people were migrating in human caravans in search of a new life with improved job and economic opportunities.

I remember traveling for three days overland until we arrived in a place called “Vallecito”, passing through vast plantations of oil palm to finally reach a small paradise, or the “promised land”, as it is known by its inhabitants. Garifuna sisters and brothers welcomed us with kindness. During those days of work and instruction in audiovisual media, I learned of many difficult stories of violence and repression endured by fellow women who had come to participate in the workshop. These were female leaders, defenders of their territories, many of whom were also criminalised, persecuted and violated.

In addition to the training in film, spaces of spiritual healing were organised with the participation of a female colleague from Guatemala. Speaking personally, these days were challenging but important for me to reevaluate my work as a filmmaker. During many years I had been involved in film production without veering much women’s issues, even though I had witnessed multiple violations towards women, as both individuals and groups, in the different contexts where I had lived.

From that moment on, I became more sensitive to issues relating to territory and women, asking myself: why are we, as women, the first to use our bodies in the defense of our territories? Certainly answers to that question gradually became clear through the process and spaces of spiritual accompaniment. We as women have been intimately bound to the land, to nature, to lunar cycles and ancestral knowledge, because we acknowledge the land as the mother who nourishes us, gives us shelter and welcomes us into her womb when we die.

Por la vida stems from all of these things. A documentary centered on the struggles and resistance of Lenca women in Honduras who weave day by day towards Buen Vivir, the good life, by way of community alternatives to extractivism and patriarchy, in spite of the devastating context that surrounds them in Honduras.

Just a few days after we began filming, we learned of the news about COVID-19. Incredulous, we continued filming until the government announced they would close the borders and implement a state of emergency, forcing us to stop and seek the means to return to Mexico. Today, from Mexico and from this artistic residency, we are reassessing the route the documentary will follow before the uncertainty that awaits us in the months to come.