The Day and the Journey Begins

This beautiful little hostel in the heart of San Cristobal is our base for the next few days and a bargain at 70 Pesos a night, including a hot breakfast. We came here to the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico to start the production of Raul's documentary. As students at the Berkeley Digital Film Institute, Raul and I enjoyed working together on several other projects, including my film of a scene from the forthcoming opera, Machine. More recently, we were working together on a project that had us driving all over the Bay Area doing interviews for a client and we got to talking about our own film projects. Raul wanted to go to Chiapas, Mexico to investigate the Zapatistas, something that he had been thinking about and planning for several years already. Little did I know that a month later, I'd be here with him, driving deep into the Mexican backcountry, looking for a close encounter with our first Zapatistas.

In trying to continue to work on the daunting prospect of making filmmaking my next career, I've taken every opportunity that has come along so far, and the next one that presented itself was this trip to Mexico, a place that I've never been, but have wanted to visit for along time now, especially considering the Spanish and Mexican culture that permeates California and the Bay Area. With all the well publicized drug violence around the border regions, especially Juarez (Raul's former hometown, in fact), I was initially pretty hesitant about the idea, but upon further discussion and investigation, I realized that Chiapas would likely be a fairly safe area of the country and with planning and preparation, we could have a pretty safe, yet eye-opening experience. After my trip to India last year, I knew the only way to go is with a good guide and translator. Raul grew up here, so I had a good start, but then we added Diana, who was highly recommended by a fellow filmmaker at the Zaentz Media Center. A native Mexican with knowledge of the region and previous work with indigenous communities, not to mention huge interest and enthusiasm for the project, Diana made the prospects for a successful trip far better.