Ways to Traverse a Territory

A family of indigenous Tsotsil women herd sheep on a green mountain slope in southern Mexico. The film observes them shearing and dyeing the wool, and walking with the animals through the mountains.

But this film is less a portrait than an encounter, one in which, rather than imposing her perspective on the viewer, filmmaker Gabriela Dominguez Ruvalcaba allows it to emerge gradually. She converses with the women—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively—about the process of filmmaking and about their cultural identity.

This reflective approach adds an essayist stratum to the film’s associative examination of the relationship between humankind and the landscape, exploring both the physical trails running through the mountains and the routes that people have historically taken.

Elements such as the minimalist soundscape, the mime-style scenes in which the women perform their daily activities, and the poetic eye for details such as tufts of wool that swirl like snow through the air all feed in to a film that explores the ways in which humankind can shape its environment, and the marks that leaves behind.