Letters from the Land of the Tarahumara (en)

Cartas desde el país de los Tahrahumaras

Selection: 

Director: 

Federico Cecchetti

Country: 

  • France
  • Mexico

Format: 

Feature film

Type: 

Fiction

Script writer(s): 

Federico Cecchetti

Synopsis: 

In 1936, at the sierra Tarahumara in Mexico, Rayenari is a young indian who is in his way to become a shaman. His life suddenly changes when he meets a strange poet named Antonin, who comes from a very distant land. At first the community feels threatened by the foreigner, but he slowly gains people’s trust. Antonin confesses to Rayenari that the purpose of his trip to Mexico is to heal his Soul. He participates in a ritual taking a sacred cactus and exorcizing his demons. When Antonin leaves the mountains, Rayenari starts having a lot of nightmares regarding his friend. With the help of a shaman, Rayenari can perceive that in France, Antonin is recruited in apsychiatric hospital, being coursed by dark sorcerers who perform electroshocks on him. Trough a shamanic process Rayenari visits Antonin in his cell, and with the magic of poetry helps him toescape in the only possible way: Death.

Visual concept: 

The narrative starts in color with a contemplative mood at the Mexican mountains in the first part of the film. In the second part, Antonin ́s mental crisis will be represented with a narrative structural rupture, using elements from surreal art and from the silent B&W pictures in which Artaud was involved as an actor.