Those flee­ing pover­ty or vio­lence and per­se­cu­tion must be good on their feet. A woman with four chil­dren choos­es the long march from Guatemala through Mexico, like many others hoping to reach the USA. Lilian has left an abu­sive hus­band, the car­a­van – plus the film crew trav­el­ing with her - offer her pro­tec­tion for this enor­mous step. Along the way, she finds other women with sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences, who are like her flee­ing not only for mate­r­i­al rea­sons. The film accom­pa­nies the won­der­ful­ly cohe­sive family and lets us expe­ri­ence a process of self-asser­tion of a young mother at first hand. A great doc­u­men­tary film that stands out impres­sive­ly from common reportages about migra­tion prob­lems. 

Jakob Krese worked for human rights NGOs in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca for sev­er­al years. He worked as a free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er and writer for radio fea­ture pro­duc­tions. Krese stud­ied camera and film direct­ing in Berlin, Havana and Sara­je­vo. His films were screened at fes­ti­vals such as IFFR Rot­ter­dam, Gua­na­ju­a­to and DOK-Leipzig. In 2019 he became co-founder of Majmun Films.  

Danilo do Carmo is a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er with inter­est in socio-eco­nom­ic issues, espe­cial­ly colo­nial his­to­ry and black iden­ti­ty in Latin Amer­i­ca. 

Direc­tors: Jakob Krese, Danilo do Carmo
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Arne Büt­tner, Danilo do Carmo
Editor: Sofía A. Machado
Pro­duc­er: Annika Mayer, Majmun Films
Dis­tri­b­u­tion: Majmun Films 

In 1923 »Cheno«, land-owner in Jalis­co, in the south of Mexico and the director’s grand­fa­ther, was assas­si­nat­ed. Rulfo trav­els back to this his­tor­i­cal place where the old people still remem­ber the wild years after the revolution. 

Visions from people of Mexico-City: We are get­ting close to the end planned by our­selves. The destruc­tion of mankind by man him­self / We are at the point of col­laps­ing / You feel under your feet some sort of bomb that could explode at any minute / Because of the pol­lu­tion we are going to be just like the birds that fall from the sky and die / I believe the worst is that people will be perish away before the city / I think that we are going to suffer water scarci­ty and with all the sub­ways that have been built, the city is going to sink / We must take care of the city because it could reach a point where there are no alter­na­tives and if that hap­pens, the city is going to dis­ap­pear / Parks are not going to be parks any­more, there will be mostly build­ings that will keep falling down / They say that in the year 2000 we are going to be 100 mil­lions people. I don’t know how many we are now, but we are a lot.

ALMA EN VUELO forms part of the Series »The paths of the sacred« on tra­di­tion­al fes­tiv­i­ties in Mexico. It records the Tarahu­mara nations’s peyote rite in North­ern Mexico. 

»The ven­er­a­tion for Tonantzin-Guadalupe has been an essen­tial Mex­i­can theme under­ly­ing Mex­i­can cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal values since the XVIth cen­tu­ry. Guided by the tes­ti­monies of Indige­nous people, Mex­i­cans of mixed her­itage and Chi­canos about this com­plex sub­ject matter, we can under­stand why…The film is a tes­ti­mo­ny of the Mex­i­can cult of the virgin of Guadalupe, where the pil­grims sig­ni­fy the Mex­i­can pop­u­la­tion of all times and the pil­grim­ages sym­bol­ize our his­to­ry. For me, this film lit­er­al­ly means a nine-year long jour­ney to the unfath­omable heart of Mexico, which beats in the hope of a better, inde­pen­dent Mexico and a better world with more peace and social jus­tice.« (J.F. Urrusti) 

The inhab­i­tants of Mexico City may not think about it daily, but the spot they live on used to be the centre of Aztec cul­ture until the 16th cen­tu­ry. How does a tra­di­tion­al Indian look at the gigan­tic metrop­o­lis, where mil­lions of mes­ti­zos live? Urrusti vis­it­ed the cap­i­tal of Mexico with the old shaman Tepú. The result is a cul­tur­al clash, which makes it clear that there is a wide gap between the tra­di­tion­al Indian vision of life and the modern world.

The film is a doc­u­men­tary on the life of Augustin Mon­toya de la Cruz , named Tepú. As a quack, song­writer, dancer and clair­voy­ant, he plays an impor­tant role in his community. 

The film doc­u­ments the east­ern fes­tiv­i­ties of the Tarahu­maras, the biggest group within the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion of Mexico. It com­bines reli­gious ele­ments with those of social organ­i­sa­tion at the begin­ning of the agrar­i­an cycle. 

This doc­u­men­tary was made at San Felipe Otlal­te­pec, mix­te­ca region in the south of the state of Puebla. It deals with the most remark­able artis­tic tra­di­tion of the farm­ers who form part of the indige­nous group Papolo­cas and who have pre­served their dialect up to now.

Doc­u­men­tary about the cer­e­monies in honour of Niño Fiden­cio, a famous curan­dero (quack) of the 20s, in the town of Espina­zo, in the state of Nuevo León. The film com­bines archival mate­r­i­al with tes­ti­monies and inter­views about the con­tem­po­rary cult.