The crew cast off and the hulled sailing boat set off on its journey. It sailed from the Mexican Caribbean to Europe. Seven Zapatistas embarked on a historic journey inward. It was May 2, 2021, a day earlier than planned, but the wind was blowing better. The journalist Diego Enrique Osorno and the photographer María Secco were also on board, but this only became known later. During the 52-day trip, the filmmakers shot La montaña, a documentary about the history of the movement that rose up in arms in 1994 to defend the rights of indigenous people and farmers in Mexico.
The film chronicles the journey that took the Zapatistas from Isla Mujeres in Quintana Roo to Galicia in northern Spain. They began a symbolic journey through several countries, a reverse conquest. “They came to invade our country. Well, now we’re going, but not to loot what’s there, we’re going to plant it,” says one of the crew members in the trailer for the film, which EL PAÍS will present in advance this Monday. The feature film premiered in the Netherlands this Sunday as part of the official selection of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, which ends on February 5th. The film does not yet have a release date in Mexico.
The 421 Squadron sailboat “La montaña” sailing in the Atlantic Ocean in a still from the documentary.María Secco (DETECTIVE)
Traveling aboard the sailboat is Squadron 421, made up of four women, two men and one non-binary: Lupita, age 19; Carolina, 26; Ximena, 25; Julia, 37; Bernal, 57; Darío, 47, and Marijose, 39. Each was chosen within their community to make the trip. According to the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), there were “more than 20” volunteers at the time, but not all of them had passports. Also present is the crew of the steel rat, consisting of five people of different nationalities. The ship is a hundred-year-old ship that once sailed the Baltic Sea, providing services for Greenpeace and transporting motorcyclists across the Caribbean. When he went with the group of Zapatistas, he took the name La montaña.
The documentary attempts to tell the story of the Zapatista National Liberation Army that rose from the mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico in 1994 and exposed the inequalities in which the majority of the country’s indigenous and peasant population lived. The feature also wants to tell about “the generational change” within the movement that Subcomandante Marcos led at the beginning. “Nearly 30 years later, this organization stores weapons, military training and ski masks (…) [Pero] They chose to focus on building autonomy and peace in their communities,” Osorno said in a promotional document for the film. The historical spokesman for the Zapatistas handed over command to Subcomandante Moisés in 2014.
The journey, which began in May 2021, is part of the “creative non-war actions in the midst of war” that the movement aims to promote and the networks of resistance it aims to create “against neoliberalism”. “Capitalism takes advantage,” says a voice in the trailer. “And people work like slaves,” adds another. Eight languages are spoken on board the ship; Tasks are distributed and the days pass while ideas are discussed and slogans are embroidered on handkerchiefs. “For me, this ship is the best example in the world,” says one of those interviewed for the film. Another added, “We’re not saying everyone becomes a zapatista, we’re saying everyone organizes, fights, resists.”
Squadron 421 bids farewell on May 2, 2021 as it departs for Europe. Gladys Serrano
“With the voyage of Squadron 421, the Zapatistas once again challenge not only the colonial perspective, proposing a route in the opposite direction to the historical one, but also the current political logic, which proclaims confusion, individualism, virtuality, isolation and greed”, he says. Osorno. The documentarist adds: “One of the things we are trying to reflect is the Zapatistas’ desire to break contemporary inertia, based on their own combat experience and the idea that in order to change the current world, we must first aim have to choose our gaze.” .
Osorno, who lives and works independently in Monterrey, has focused his work on social, political and criminal issues. He is the author of books such as The Sinaloa Cartel (Grijalbo) or Slim (Debate); He has written screenplays for films such as La Libertad del Diablo directed by Everardo González or Ruido by Natalia Beristain or series such as 1994 (Netflix). The journey of La montaña and her crew has only just begun, Osorno warns: “La montaña tells of an endearing collective navigation that is just the beginning of the broader journey that the EZLN will take across the five continents in the years to come, to… to share its seeds of rebellion”.
Official poster of the documentary ‘La montaña’.Detective
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