Land of Mennonites
(TIERRA MENONITA)

Adele Schmidt
Mexico 2000 | 58 Min. | OmeU, Video

The 1987 »Miss Beauty« from the North­ern Mex­i­can state of Chi­huahua is a Men­non­ite, although the tra­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty doesn’t con­sid­er her to be. She belongs to the lib­er­al wing 50 of this reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty whose ori­gins date back to 16th cen­tu­ry Ger­many. The Men­non­ites who arrived in Mexico in 1922 after a lengthy stream of immi­gra­tion, con­vert­ed the desert into farmable land, and were reward­ed with an eco­nom­ic boom. Today 30.000 Men­non­ites live in North­ern Mexico where the same land now has noth­ing to offer many of the young people there, who are forced to seek employ­ment else­where. Fifty years ago this com­mu­ni­ty was known for its strict policy of iso­la­tion, but is now forced to open itself up to the out­side world. This is a movie about glob­al­iza­tion and its effects on iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties. What hap­pens when the out­side world changes at an uncon­trol­lable speed and impos­es itself on closed com­mu­ni­ties? Con­flict arises in the work place, in the family, and at school.