Excerpts From our Mexico Release Tour
August 30, 2024
I sit slumped on the floor in the middle of an OfficeMax after an onslaught of negotiations with printing houses, audio visual vendors and pinching pesos to pay for chairs and tamales. I’m frustrated by how often I need to ask people to repeat directions or how quickly I get lost converting feet to meters or dollars to pesos, sending partial vendor payments through the local OXXO (or 7Eleven) in lieu of Venmo and Zelle. Just the day before, Tijuana City Hall pulled their support for the event without explanation. We were counting on this money to cover the busses that will transport migrants from shelters to the Border screening and this news just about puts me over the edge.
I look up and see a bumper sticker plastered on a post in the middle of the store that says “TRUST,” in English. I remind myself that doing this is a choice and whatever frustration I may be feeling is time limited. I think about this city teaming with migrants from around the world, many of whom must make it their home if only temporarily. I wonder how they are managing with such little resources or the realization that they may never return home, let alone find their way to where they are trying to go. I don’t have too much time to think on it, however, as a WhatsApp message comes in from our partner organization Espacio Migrante; “we found busses.” it says.
The busses pour out families at the famous "El Faro" lighthouse in Playas de Tijuana, the same place where we filmed six years before. An oversized “America’s Family” tarp waves underneath the other artwork smattered against the Border Wall that stands just behind the outdoor screen and stage. This Spanish dubbed version of the film takes on a new meaning as the audience hears it entirely in their own language and as the bright lights from the screen reflect the experiences of its audience portrayed in the film.
September 23, 2024
After holing up in a Tapachula motel room for two days, taking press interviews and preparing for the tour, I steal away to visit the mountains where coffee is grown. Townspeople do their best to slow their Spanish down enough so that I can understand how to get there. When I arrive, a local guide pulls me underneath her umbrella to protect me from the seasonal downpour. Locals kindly guide through the maze of group taxis and small busses when it’s time to get back. “When did it become such a crime to need help?” I ask myself as I think of all of the anti-immigrants rhetoric back home. Isn’t the only reason that anyone gets anywhere in life because someone decides to help them?
The screening that night is held at the Fray Matías Human Rights Center, and the organizers go to nearby parking lots and with bull horns announcing that there is a film and free food close by. Migrants return with them and sit together among the activists and community members from across the city. Among them, a family gives me smiles of encouragement. I am grateful, remembering that without an audience, there is no film.
September 25, 2024
I fall head over heels with every step up the winding staircase to the Casa del Cine, Mexico City’s famous cineclub complete with a library stacked with books on film, posters of movies gone by covering the walls and dramatically high ceilings. I head from here to Cine Tonalá where we screened an earlier version of the film a few years before and worry about how we’re going to fill two theaters in two different locations for our two Mexican premieres. Christian Palma, our Director of Photography, assures me that audiences will indeed come, and they do. During the Q&A I’m happy that I get to tell the audience that of all the decisions I had to make as a director, my very best one was selecting Christian Palma as our cinematographer.
October 23, 2024
It’s two weeks later, and Christian and I along with CHIRLA in Mexico Monitoring Coordinator, Andrew Bahena are on our way to speak with film students following a screening at the Festival de cine independiente de Toluca. Andrew is good at playing tour guide, pointing out the Cablebús, Mexico’s aerial tramway above and La Marquesa to our right; the mountains turned beautiful pine forests of Mexico City. The screening is held at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, one of two public universities in the state and it serves a whopping 84,500 students in the state capital of Toluca. In the barrage of inquiry from the first year film students, one question comes up again and again. “Did you ever feel like quitting?” they ask. “Every day,” I tell them, “even now.”
October 24, 2024
Community consultant Victor Campos picks me up from the Puerto Escondido airport in the Oaxacan coast. We head to the press conference where we’ll meet my old buddy Rosy, a scrappy, strong willed activist who introduced me to the Afro-Mexican community years before. Seven years later, and Rosy is now Congresista Rosa Maria Salinas Castro, a Congresswoman in Mexico and representative of the Afro-Mexican people. She tells the press that in lieu of paying for tickets, people should come to the screening with food for the families whose lives have been upended by Hurricane John.
The following morning we head to Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido’s premiere arts institution that supports cultural exchange between contemporary art and local communities. The young people in particular ask probing questions, especially about racism in Mexico and the U.S. One person calls out to say how the film reminds her of her years in the U.S. going through a marriage, raising kids then going through a divorce and the difficult return to Mexico which she does not expand upon. The several high school students in the audience listen to her deeply.
To no one’s surprise but my own, a full house shows for the Benefit screening, all laden with bags of food, clothes and infinite supplies. I tell the story of a Cuernavaca Spanish school director who accompanied me on the first journey to the Mexican coast so that I could meet the Afro-Mexican people. Now a quarter of a century later, his nephew sits in the audience, promising to make sure that his uncle sees the film.
October 25, 2024
This tour is moving so quickly that just as I get comfortable in one city we are on to the next. Stepping off the bus, I am blasted by the chill of Oaxaca City after the intense heat of Puerto Escondido. The shops plunged so closely together remind me of New York City even as they stand on charming cobblestone streets. The streets are filled with adults and children wearing face-painted skulls and rose garlands on their heads in advance of the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday. I find a vegan taco spot and talk an Australian couple and a pair of elders into come to the screening at Sala Elia. Following the screening, the fiercely independent cinema owner Mariana, offers to show it again in December, impressed by the engagement of the small but mighty audience and the pitch made by CHIRLA Deputy Director of the Southern Region and Binational Affairs Esme Flores. Later, I wander through old churches and the eateries, ending up in the outdoor markets. I buy a handmade rolling pin, thinking of future baking when I’ll roll out dough and remember these days.
October 27. 2024
You can see the glorious lights of San Cristóbal de las Casas as the highway unwinds towards the town. It is among the loveliest of tourist traps that features equal amounts tranquility and pressure to buy. Upon discovering that I lost my phone, I allow myself to make friends with whomever is nearby, dining with a stranger at Kinoki officially the coolest of all the cineclubs where we are screening. The next day, our eclectic audience includes a mix of Mexicans, Germans and Australians who press me for details about immigrant life in the U.S. and for my opinions about the pending election.
October 30, 2024
Taking my first day off in weeks, I travel to the Sumidero Canyons in Chiapas. This may be the most majestic place I have ever seen, with its 3,000 feet high canyon walls, streaming waterfalls and burst of wildlife. Looking at the American alligators on the river banks, the swinging monkeys and countless birds species, I feel like a mere spec in the grand natural world and grateful to be a part of it. Passing through this paradise, we enter a cove watched over by the Virgen de Guadalupe. A mass of garbage and plastic bottles saddle alongside the boat that have washed here by the rains and sea. Funny how we humans have talked ourselves into thinking that we’re the kings of the world and therefore have the right to destroy mother earth. I am without a phone and unable to permanently capture the dichotomy of the experience, but here is one picture snapped by a fellow American on the tour.
