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A Territory is More Than a Place: Interview with Gabriela Domínguez and Pía Quintana, director and producer of FORMAS DE ATRAVESAR UN TERRITORIO

Ariadna Lucas Coronel

Approaching the unknown based on our desires and personal questions is a challenge that Gabriela Domínguez Ruvalcaba and Pía Quintana Enciso managed to overcome and materialize in their most recent documentary Formas de atravesar un territorio (2024), which is part of the Mexican Documentary Section of the 22nd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

Through the story of a family of Tsotsil shepherdesses in the highlands of Chiapas, Gabriela reminds us that territory is more than a place: it is an extension of our histories, our bodies and our collective memories. In a world increasingly disconnected from nature, the film seeks to reconnect the viewer with the land and the life forms that arise from it, creating a dialogue between the known and the unknown.

FICM: Formas de atravesar un territorio explores how identity is intrinsically connected to territory. What motivated you to make this documentary and address this connection between Tsotsil women and the hill they inhabit?

Gabriela Domínguez: Well, I am from San Cristóbal and this story, or this territory, is also my territory. For as long as I can remember, it has always been a place where we have coexisted both with the people who live there and with the hills that surround us. It has always been a relationship that I have been very interested in exploring, how all this crosses us and builds our identities. How we link ourselves to the territory, in some way, identifies us.

So, the film had that intention, to make an encounter with Tsotsil women whom I somehow remember and have seen all my life, but there was always this distancing that was more cultural than territorial.

I wanted to create a new approach and meet with that universe of the mountains and get together. Well, that's how the idea was born and that's also how Pía and I identified with each other.

Pía Quintana: I am not from San Cristóbal, but when I moved there I felt that I was part of it, and we cohabited in the same space with very diverse people, and then we also asked ourselves: “What makes us be here together, so many people, from so many different places? Where I used to live, there were shepherdesses who were in that territory, shepherding and everything, and I always had the intention of saying, “Come in!” I had a patch of grass -and it rains a lot, so it's overgrown-, and I would say, “Oh, if you want, come in here so that your sheep can eat.” And I began to have these little winks of a different way of living. And it was [to ask ourselves]: How are we going to get closer? Well, by doing what we do, that's why we make documentaries. And I also think it is, in a way, like a memory of all these people and all these ways of living that somehow exist in this territory with those mountains, the water, and everything that Gabi already mentioned.

FICM: Gabriela, the film asks: “Do we belong to a place or does a place belong to us"? How did you yourself respond to this question during the making of the documentary? How do you think these Tsotsil women respond to this question through their lifestyle?

Gabriela Domínguez: Well, the question, in a way, was a guide. I don't want to say a trigger, but an axis: “Do we belong to a place or does a place belong to us?" I came from observing those other ways of belonging to a territory, where there is a care for the cycles, the processes of life, the link with the land and the animals. So, I always perceived this idea of those of us who live in the city of wanting to return to the land, to the processes where there is care, to the cycles. That makes us belong to a territory. We belong through memory, through what we do and how we connect. It is the opposite of these other ways in which we feel that the territory belongs to us and we can make use of it through extraction, in many ways. Those are the two sides. As I was saying, it is not that it was the trigger, but it was always to work in this reality. In this territory, the idea is more to belong to a place because it is taken care of, because we belong to it, and not because we feel it belongs to us.

FICM: Through a still video you show the activity of these women around sheep and wool. It seems to show us that the body is an extension of what we do and where we are. Am I right? How did you arrive at this formulation through living with Doña Sebastiana and her family?

Gabriela Domínguez: The body, more than an extension, is a complement of the mind. I feel that there is a way in which we perceive and understand what we are. Sometimes it is taken very much towards the rational, but the body also has other ways of existing and understanding itself in the territory and it is not only a complement to the rational, the feeling. Just like memory, sometimes it seems that everything is in the mind, but there is also memory in the body. For example, all the gestures that appear in the film, gestures in their work, in the way in which they understand themselves as part of that forest... The relationship between body and territory, body-memory, that was also an intention to work on in the film. To work on how the body not only serves us to do things, but is our first point of approach, through feeling and memory, and that, of course, leads to identities.

FICM: As a producer, what challenges did you face in gaining access to the Tsotsil community and what bond did you generate with Doña Sebastiana and her family?

Pía Quintana: I think the challenge in the production, beyond arriving and suggesting making a film, was to build a relationship and always be clear and honest about the processes we were developing. Giving us the time to communicate what we were going to do, how we were going to do it, and what steps we were going to follow. Even now that the film is being screened, it's the same thing.  

Gabriela Domínguez: It was always, from the beginning, a film in which there was a need to be there with them. Well, all documentary films have this process in which what you see in the film is only a small part of the whole relationship that is built with the people. And of the challenges, let's say that it is always the challenge of generating that trust, of generating that bond. So all this was achieved through time, visits, and companionship. We were present all the time, we were also in the middle of the pandemic, so many things happened in the process. I met them in 2018 and, from that year until 2022, many things happened in life, besides the pandemic or family situations. But also very nice things, like many walks with them there and going with them to the pastures. In short, an important bond was generated. One of the challenges was how we could make sure that, when the girls from the crew came, they could achieve what they already had with me, which is a very close, very familiar thing. The truth is that it was a challenge that was easy from the beginning because we chose an all-female crew: there was the sound engineer, the photographer, Pía [producer], and the production assistant. I mean, it was all women and, at the time, there was a very nice thing that was created during the shoot, a kind of mutual interest. With them asking our photographer Nat about Mexico City, as well as the other women. So I think that the challenge of building trust was a challenge that was very easy to overcome and to build trust. 

FICM: The film has an essayistic approach combining the personal with the documentary. What attracted you to this style of narrating the story of the Tsotsil women and their relationship with the land?

Gabriela Domínguez: Maybe I have to start a little bit with the fact that I didn't study film as such, so my approach to filmmaking has also been from other disciplines and I'm also very interested in the processes. That is to say, for me the process is the film (especially in the ways of going through a territory in documentaries, but I imagine that in fiction as well). So, in understanding the process as part of the film, I found a form, which is an essayistic form, as you say, that allows you to zigzag between one place and another. Not only in terms of territory, but also of ideas, of connecting things that are disconnected but that you can bring together to create a discourse, to talk about something that is also difficult to tell with a story. So, in this case, the concept or the idea of working on identity or identities, how to do it without having to tell a story, but rather by relating elements. And so that's how I got into...

FICM: What do you hope viewers will take away from Formas de atravesar un territorio? What reflections would you like to provoke regarding the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit?

Pía Quintana: I don't want to expect something from the audience, but rather let them be surprised. The first time I screened something with Gabi's previous work, there was an audience in a movie theater in San Cristóbal, and the audience began to talk about geography, about other subjects, and it was really surprising how they made it their own. So I think that would be it: that new questions, new ideas would arise. Hopefully there will be new reflections and they will make us, and the shepherds, and the whole team, rethink other ideas.

Gabriela Domínguez: It's like the experience of seeing women in costumes for the first time - outfits that are worn with sheep in their garments - and speaking in a language that, in general, is unknown to many, to the majority.... That experience is, at first, I think, one of the most beautiful things to see in the audience. There is a curiosity of wanting to know more: why do they do that, who are they, where do they live? I mean, those questions, which are not answered in the film, I like it, and it's not that I expected it, it was not an idea I had before making the film, but I think what I hope is that they find a universe that also makes them wonder about things. That raises more questions than clarity. The film does have, suddenly, moments that are unexpected, but that are also open to the interpretation of the eyes and the people who see it.

FICM: Who is your favorite Mexican filmmaker of all time and why?

Gabriela Domíngiuez: I can think, for example, of Sandra Luz López Barroso. I like her way of being in the movies. That's something I admire a lot. But I also think, at this moment, of Christiane Burkhard. I like her way of breaking or looking for other non-linear ways of making films, where they are just like in those border limits.

Pía Quintana: I don't have any. I used to have them, but time has also made me discard some ideas, as you get into the profession and explore. I love Mexican documentaries, that's for sure. I mean, I think it is something that makes us identify ourselves as a country, that represents us, that questions us, and there are many directors who are there. I'm going to go with the documentary filmmakers, the Mexican documentary filmmakers.

FICM: Where were you and how did you receive the news that you had been selected to participate in the festival?

Pía Quintana: In Locarno. It was always like the next festival they would let us know we were in.

Gabriela Domínguez: Exactly. In fact, we are waiting for more news.

Pía Quintana: You are excited that you are in that festival and there is a previous excitement. They let you know and you can't say, but we are here, we already have to be excited about this other one. I think Morelia was expected and longed for because it is like home for us, because the film was in progress at Impulso, and we finished thanks to Impulso. It was a great, great support to finish the film, so it was like, “We have to be there.” But in the end, well, there are a lot of films that also deserve to be there. And, that was it: we talked to one of the programmers when we were in Locarno we had a Zoom meeting and there she told us that the film was contemplated to be here. But it still couldn’t be “official."

Gabriela Domínguez: We had to wait a while to say it. And something nice, when the official program came out... because at that moment, well, you know that the film is going to be there, but you don't know who it will be with. But when the publication came out, I was very pleased to see the Mexican documentary selection, and the fiction selection as well; how diverse and integrated it is. I really liked seeing us among other directors, with a diversity of bets and ways of making films that seemed to me like “what a nice moment to belong to this generation of filmmakers who are going to be in this edition of the Morelia Film Festival”. And yes, how exciting that we can share this programming space that I think is going to be very interesting and rich to enjoy.