Content area
The Mexican Documentary created by women between 2012 and 2019 provides a variety of sound techniques and strategies to present relevant sociocultural topics. It is through sound that the directors delve deep into what the word ‘love’ means, what happens when entire communities are displaced, and where to go when the government is the same one that has taken away your freedom and your loved ones from you? Mapping sounds is a way to center women’s voices and the ways women create audiovisual worlds. Tempestad and Los Reyes del pueblo que no existe bring attention to the sounds of precarity, accompaniment, loss, and violence. Koltavanej and Tote_Abuelo center the conversation as a way to heal past narratives rooted in systemic racism in Mexico and to open up about what it means to share sounds in the community. ¿Qué les pasó a las abejas? and Gente de mar y viento demonstrate how sound distortion, music, and natural background sounds enhance the experiences of communities in Chiapas and Yucatán. The documentaries follow the lives of Mexican communities in the north and south through the lenses of women directors, focusing on sound worlds and the continuum of past, present, and future, even when violence threatens to take away your voice, your home, your family, your language, and your freedom.