Cherán
A quiet revolution is taking place in the P’urhépecha forest of Michoacán in Mexico. The 2011 P’urhépecha uprising in Cherán battled against illegal logging, narco-cartels, and various forms of extraction. Cherán is the first autonomous Indigenous community with a system of governance built on P’urhépecha traditions, officially recognized by the Mexican state. The Indigenous P’urhépecha are ancestral victims of state power and colonial forms of governance woven with violent disparities of race, class and geography.
Following the tradition of cinema vérité, this film respond to the rhythms and textures of lived experience by Indigenous activists in Cherán. Through careful observation of their everyday life, this ethnographic study weaves in various geographies and rural environments, from campesinos and local activists to Indigenous local militia. Lingering between cinema vérité and ethnography, this film emphasizes rural space and the forest as sets of relationships, where various P’urhépecha forms of activism distributes in the landscape in ways we may not always see.
Credits
Doña Imelda Campos Sebastian
Don Fidel Cucue Turja
Don Jose Merced Velazquez Pañeda
Jesús Ángel Pedroza
Heriberto Campos AKA ‘Diablo’
Salvador Torres Tomás
Produced by POLLO
Sound design by Christian Olsen
Sound post-production by Christian Olsen
Post-production by PRIM
Productions Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal
Production Support
MERST
Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, Recherche, Science et Technologie
Gouvernement du Québec
Canada
MEES
Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur
Gouvernement du Québec
Canada
El Colegio De Michoacán
Centro de Estudios en Geografia Humana
Mexico
Concordia University
Faculty of Fine Arts
Canada
Financial Support
Canada Council for the Arts
Canada
PRIM
Programme Documentaire à Risque
Canada
MITACS Globalink Research Award
Canada
Talks
University of California
Indigenous Film Festival Initiative
2023
[ link ]
SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art
Conversation with Curator Michele Fiedler
2021
[ link ]
Concordia University
The Making of Indigenous Resistance: Land Struggle and the Foreclosure of Politics
2016
[ link ]
Exhibitions | Screenings
Militant tour at Museo Franklin Rawson and Sala Lugones in Argentina, Museo Nacional de las Culturas Populares in México, Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts in USA, cine FLACSO in Ecuador, Centro Cultural Estación Caldera, Centro Cultural La Casa and Museo Regional de Ancud in Chile.