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.

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Talks

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.