We are going to Mexico! While we’re sad to miss the lovely warm beaches on this particular trip, we’re excited to go to the the mountainous region of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, which straddles the states of Mexico & Michoacan. There lives a group of indigenous people who watch the forests 24 hours a day to protect it from illegal logging which threatens the very existence of the Monarch butterflies who make their spectacular 2,000 mile migration from Canada to this spot in Mexico every year for the winter. These indigenous people, who once logged the forest for subsistence, have now taken up the cause of the threatened monarch butterflies. This year, the lowest number of monarchs ever recorded returned to Mexico, worrying conservationists and locals alike. What will become of these people’s newly adopted lifestyle if the monarchs disappear altogether? Why do they hold such a deep relationship with the monarch butterflies? Why did these indigenous people take up the cause of the monarch, and will they return to logging? We go to Mexico with many unanswered questions that we hope to explore by embedding ourselves in the lives of these people, camping overnight in the forest with them as they keep watch over the forest. They are indeed the unsung heroes of the Monarch conservationist movement. We have an inkling that there’s a good story, but will not know if it will be a feature film until we spend time there. So while the unknown is a bit scary, we’re excited for what this new adventure might bring.
As filmmakers we’ve found ourselves drawn to stories about communities in transition. From the capitalizing Israeli kibbutz in “Keeping the Kibbutz” to the Washington, DC men’s clothing store struggling against the tide of gentrification in “Fate of a Salesman,” we’ve asked the question: how do people identify themselves through community and what happens when that very community changes? I don’t think we’ve discovered a clear cut answer, nor do I think we ever will. And the more I make films, the more I realize that my job is to explore questions not provide definitive answers. The filmmaking process is truly one of discovery and revelation, and not necessarily arriving at an absolute truth.
I regularly watch the short film Ken Burns: On Story to find inspiration on storytelling. In the film, Burns admits his interest lies in making things complicated: You know the common story is one plus one equals two, we get it. But all stories are really, the real genuine stories, are about one and one equaling three. That’s what I’m interested in. We live in a rational world where absolutely we’re certain that one and one equals two, and it does. But the things that matter most to us, some people call it love, some people call it God, some people call it reason, is that other thing where the whole is greater than the some of its parts, and that’s the three.”
I love the idea of finding stories that are messy and unclear, exploring and presenting them to an audience, and allowing them to come to revelation on their own. More often than not, they reveal new aspects of a story they’ve only seen for 5, 30, 60 minutes but I’ve been entrenched in for months, if not years. So as we embark on this trip, we do so with lots of questions and a desire to capture an atmospheric story of people and their relationship with nature. We look forward to sharing our experience with all of you when we return!
