Episode 6: Daughters of the Forest

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Piña Soul Podcast! 🎙️

In this episode, we speak with Otilia Portillo Padua, director and producer of Daughters of the Forest, an immersive sci-fi documentary that follows two Indigenous mycologists in Mexico as they navigate the intersections of ancestral knowledge, modern science, and environmental change.

Together, we explore the relationships between humans and mushrooms, the visible and invisible worlds that shape our lives, and how Indigenous communities are reimagining the future while remaining deeply rooted in generations of knowledge. Daughters of the Forestinvites us to rethink our connections with both human and non-human beings and consider new possibilities for living in reciprocity with the Earth.

Let's get started. 🌿🍄✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Pinya Soul Podcast with Dr. Jessica Hernandez. Welcome to episode six of the Pinasol Podcast. Today we're joined by Otelia Portillo Padua, director and producer of Daughters of the Forest. Deep in the forest of Mexico, two indigenous mycologists seek to reconcile the past and present while reimagining the future in the rapidly changing climate. Daughters of the Forest explores the connections between humans and mushrooms, the visible and invisible, in Indigenous knowledge and modern science. This emerged sci-fi documentary invites us to rethink our relationships with the human and unhuman roles and to imagine new possibilities for living in reciprocity with Earth. Joining us an honor to be interviewing you, especially for your documentary entitled Daughters of the Forest. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do and what inspired you to do this documentary?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, well, thank you very much for the space. Dr. Hernandez, it's a pleasure to be here. Well, basically, Daughters of the Forest is a film about that follows the trajectories of two indigenous mycologists. One is Zapotec from the central valleys of Oaxaca, and then the other one is Elizete Ramirez Carvajal, which is Tlahuica Pejaco, which is from Mexico State. So only two hours away from Mexico City. It's in a very lush forest nearby, near a national park called Laguna de Sempuala. And it follows their life, but also follows how mushrooms shaped their lives and their futures. So this film was premiered in March at South Bike, no, at CPH in Copenhagen, and then it was at South Bay where it won an audience award. And since it's been in San Francisco and the Margaret Mead, it's gonna be in DC Docks. I'm here right now at in LA for the Hollywood Climate Summit. So so basically it's been it's been moving around. It's basically a documentary, but it has some touches of speculative fiction.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, thank you. I noticed that, especially in the introduction, right? Like I felt like there was um a lot of focus on the natural sounds that the forest makes, which oftentimes when we are in the environments, right, we forget to listen to nature. So that was very beautiful. And um, what kind of inspired you to tell their story, especially given that you know you're focusing on mycologists, indigenous mycologists, which is tends to be something that mainstream environmental documentaries rarely focus on, right? Like when we focus on the forest, it's more of like the holistic forest, but not so much on the mycology, the fungi communities in the forest.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, first of all, it's it's very interesting because actually the the movie starts with a writer, a sci-fi writer called Ursula K. And she wrote in the 70s this essay called The Carrier Back Theory of Fiction. And in this in this essay, she basically touches on the first uh human tool of civilization, according to this female anthropologist, in which she talks about the vessel, like a carrier back, a basket. So the foraging as the first tool of human rights civilization rather than what we conceive as like the sword or a thing to kill something else. It was, it was, it was, is it was the basket. So in that sense, she said that she really thought that although she understood the hero journey, the hero journey as a narrative form didn't really describe her experience. And she thought there was space to talk about stories more like vessels, like carrier. And so from that essay, I was like, well, what is a vessel story? What would a container story, a woven story would be like? What are the threads that would be this story? What's the knowledge contained in this in this carrier bag? And and some then like we discovered, you know, that there was this incredible foraging community that had a really strong relationship with mushrooms for a longer time than even fungus became popular. You know, right like for the last couple of years, we've heard a lot about mushrooms and they're everywhere. But I was like, what about all these individuals that have had such a strong intimate relationship for generations with fungi? And and where where are there basically where are they in this longer in this bigger conversation? And I think so it was the basket that took us to the mushroom, and the mushroom kind of guided us with its mycelium root system to the women that were the carriers of this knowledge vessel.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah, thank you for sharing that because it's very beautiful, right? Because yeah, you are right. Like foraging, I mean, mushrooms are not necessarily as heavily impacted in the environmental discourse, right? When people study, like that's one of the last things they want to study. But in social media, foraging has become this like trend that many people are doing and becoming kind of like famous for it, but they're not necessarily integrating the indigenous perspectives that have been in there for for you know generations and millennia. One of the things that I really liked, and I don't know if this was like your intention, was that when I was like uh seeing the film, there was like this in a way influence of indigenous futurisms, um, or f indigenous future, because oftentimes, right, when we see documentaries on indigenous peoples, like it's important to focus on the past, but in even the interaction, right? And even though this essay that you started with in the documentary is from the 70s, there is this sense of indigenous futurism. What was your vision including that indigenous futurism into the documentary?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I think, I mean, in in a way, the I felt like there was always something slightly sci-fi spectral about this woman going to commune with this ancestral being, like this being that the mycelium, you know, this invisible network that we don't see. We see the fruit of the mushroom, but we don't see the mycelium normally all the time. We we kind of see it manifest itself when it rains and when you see the fruit, but otherwise there's this mycelium. And I thought there was something very, you know, an incredible like sense of futuristic about woman going and you know and convening with this being. I mean, already like as a sci-fi premise. But I think I was very inspired by this because we have a notion of what a hero is and what a hero does, and it's mostly masculine, and it's mostly he kills another being that is strange and I and or alien to himself and it's antagonistic force. And so, in a way, the film is not anchored in tensions of conflict. It's it's how you weave in forms of knowledge and you have a communication and a nurturing with this other. And in the sense, this other being is a multiple of beings, it's not one entity, it's the the fungal world. And I thought there was already something very, even though the past is there and the present is there, and they're not necessarily as objective realities, they're more like possibilities. They're not necessarily literal. They're the present is always sort of evolving, the past is always there, feeding from the present, and the future is a possible sense of the possible. So, in a sense, I think it the film, because you know, in Latin America what happens a lot, and I think it's because at some point the label of magical rhythm was used to label everything in Latin America. Like it was magical and it was realism, and I think at some point it got overused to the point that everything that is comes to America, magical realism. And there was a sense, no, no, no, sci-fi is kept for for you know Western civilizations or technology or technocracy or computers. And what about, well no, what about old forms of knowledge? What about biology? What about anthropology? What about mysticism? I mean, there are forms of sci-fi in that sense in that. There's spiritual sci-fi. And and and I think by meeting uh Lise and Julie and a web, because I think they only represent a generation of a lot of webs of girls that are in the intersection between some of them studying Western academics and and that and their own knowledge, which comes from their families and whether vessels of all of this knowledge that comes before them. I think I was very inspired about what the future would could hold if they were the heroes, like if we could see these girls as as they changed their lives and that of their communities with what they had around them. And what they had around them was mushrooms.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, that's that's very beautiful, right? Because even you're mentioning magical realism, like, you know, coming from Latin America myself, like it tends to, in a way, freeze indigenous communities in the past. Like every time we see a film that has magical realism and involves indigenous peoples, it's like this romanticizing of our cultures. But I really like that you integrated sci-fi, right? Because it it does, it removes that romantization that freezes Indigenous peoples and brings in these two women that you're mentioning into the discourse, right? Into the protagonist in um raw, as opposed to just being a side note, which tends to happen with that. Like I can think of like even Disney with the movie Coco, um, is very magicalism, but in that sense, it's like freezing even a tradition in the in the past, even though the tradition has evolved from what the film portrayed. Um, another thing I really liked is that you shifted how you're talking about climate, especially climate change, from this apocalyptic narrative, right? Where it's like the gloom and doom, and you kind of shifted that storytelling into the futures, into optimism. What was your decision into doing that, or how did that come about? Was it influenced by the two protagonists or women that you follow in the documentary?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

I think it was it was mostly influenced by them, uh, by this realization there were people working with what they had around them. But it was also heavily influenced by the mushrooms themselves, by the resilience, by the adaptability, but that like that they defy kind of like preconceptions and labels about what they are. On one hand, you can also romanticize mushrooms like this, all collaborative beings. But mushrooms are also very opportunistic, you know. They they seize opportunities, they degrade death, like they they degrade matter, they they integrate on a sort of death into the life cycles. And it's not like they're all bright, they're they're complex beings that we haven't really completely understood. So I think what happens is that obviously the film is permitted with loss. There is the loss of territory, there is the loss of forest, there is the loss of our ancestors or elders of a knowledge of our dreams. You know, sometimes you want to do something like Julie, she wants to, she has this dream of what her future holds, and it doesn't happen. And so it does permeate loss, but it's a it's basically learning that because the mushrooms in a way are the non-human teachers in the whole film, like what can how can they shape loss? And in that sense, how can we understand that there's always gonna be loss as a part of the cycle of life? But how do we, how do we integrate that loss and not allow that loss to completely define us? And in a way, in the whole climate story right now, we there's this sense of there is a lot of, there's obviously a lot of despair and there's a lot of sense that we can't do anything about a few the future, the future in the bigger sense, or even about our futures. And I thought that that here we are with examples of two girls that, you know, are not, they don't have that much, they don't have that much resources, and yet they do all these things with what they have. And and so I was like, why is that not an inspiration for us? Like me, like a city person, or or anyone like, how can we not, you know, make little things that matter on an everyday basis? How we not not relate to the other, be more empathetic, not only to the human world, but to the non-human world. And in that sense, I was like, that that's how we can believe that we can have an action and and and shape our futures, not in the bigger heroic scale, but in the smaller community way that we are as people on an everyday basis.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah, thank you for sharing that because I feel like even talking to my elders in my community in Oaxaca, oftentimes they say that despair is a way for people to remove responsibilities from their roles, right? Like if we're in despair, we're like, well, we cannot do anything, we're no longer responsible for trying to heal whatever is happening. And oftentimes in in Latin America and in indigenous and local communities of Latin America, we use that in a way that joy as a form of resistance, right? Like we use um remove that despair so that we can actually continue to have hope for the future. And this is why our cultures tend to be very joyful, verdad. Like even in dancing and the music that we do. So I really love that that you integrated that into that. Um, and one of the things that I really admire about the film is that you are very careful in ensuring that you're not sharing sacred knowledge, right? And I'm assuming that there was some sacred knowledge that was shared with you. But how did you go about respecting indigenous knowledge systems in a way that they were respectfully represented in the film and didn't and were not necessarily as extractive? Like how what was your approach in ensuring that also sacred knowledge that oftentimes if it falls in the wrong hands, right, is co-opted. And we see that a lot with indigenous communities and and the stuff that sometimes we share and that, like my Walika always said, you gotta be careful with what we share because sometimes it's repackaged in in Western society and then souls, and then our communities do not necessarily benefit. So, what was your approach in in deciding what to do in that sense?

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I think that there there were kind of there were there were sort of multiple approaches. One the beginning is that we do know the story of Maria Sabina. We do uh in Mexico, and I and I hope more people know about this story where you have an incredibly wise woman that shared some of her incredible knowledge of the sacred mushroom to the West. Well, she shared it to a particular person and to a particular group of people with the agreed word, verbal agreement, like your word does matter in this case scenario. So it's not like a written contract word in those in those spaces matters, and that the trust you build really matters. And and there was this breach of trust. So basically, the whole knowledge of the sacred mushroom was taken. There was this uh betrayal of Maria Sabina and the figure of Maria Sabina, and then the whole, you know, the whole changed completely. So this is information, though there's all of course the uh psilocybin has been synthesized. There's a lot of information, studies on how it's a brain. There's psilocybin mushrooms all over the world, not only in Mexico, but you know, there was this very the the relationship as an oracle of for the holy mushroom was very particular to the masotex and probably to other cultures that we don't know about. So that that that backstory was always present when we were approaching. So we're very aware of that. So I think the way we started it, we we started first, we approached their mentors, like how we started working with them is we worked with the scientists, a very humane group of scientists in Texcoco, which study the land and you know, have a lot of fields. So this group of doctors basically have worked with a lot of indigenous students from all over Mexico. And they, although they're very scientific, and you know, they make papers in Western magazines and something, they have an incredible respect to other forms of knowledge. So indigenous science matters, uh, and ethnomycology is a really big field in Mexico, so it matters much. So during the film, there was always this conversation about even you know in academia, not only with film, it was like, okay, so we give this knowledge and then and then we never hear back from them. We don't get the paper, we don't get quoted, uh, we don't even get like she mentions it like in a very she means she's laughing, but it's very truly just we don't even get a coke. We don't get like or a mascal or uh or or an acknowledgement, no? So so for us, I mean, it's so instead of like because because we had these mentors that were doctors that have worked very carefully and a lot of reciprocity, there was always this sense of let's not antagonize, let's not, you know, like in Western narratives, we always want to create the conflict, not like anchor everything on the tensions between two forms of things. I was like, no, let's it's a conversation. So the whole film was always a conversation back and forth with them about okay, this is what's fine to share, this is what's not fine to share. Uh, this is how much uh you wanna like, for example, for Lisa was very important that it was understood that she was a node, like she was carrying knowledge that didn't necessarily belong, like that she didn't generate, like generations behind her generated. So, you know, it's a like it's in a way the film organically grew into mycelium, the way in the same the conversations sort of. So it was, I think there was there was always this sense of consent. Like, what do you want to show? What do you want, don't want to show? There's obviously no, I mean, because for example, with the toxic mushrooms, and let's not go into the psychodalys, with toxic mushrooms, there was there's some of this knowledge maybe cost people's lives. You know, like the difference between meeting a edible mushroom or a toxic mushroom or a deadly mushroom, I mean, represented somebody, I don't know, an animal, someone risking maybe their life for this knowledge. It's it's but in a way, some I I really I heard from a mycologist who was just one day that he said that he trusted a foraging woman more than he trusted a mycologist in terms of knowledge about which mushroom to eat. So he's like, if my mycologist tells me to eat this mushroom, I won't necessarily trust it. But if a for like if a woman that collects mushrooms tells me, I trust her. Because for her, for them, that knowledge is the thread between living and dying. And so I I guess because we didn't anchor, you know, we didn't try to make conflict, we didn't force conflict, you know. A lot of it, when you're trying to fund the film, people are like, what's the conflict? What's gonna drive the thing? Who's gonna attack whatever? But that was never the premise. The premise was a con an organ, like a growing conversation where where there was all these things that I wasn't gonna be able to know, and there was things that were fine to remain mysteries. And I and then I could be like, Yeah, you know, I'm gonna be an outsider on this knowledge, and I'm never gonna completely understand it. And it's gonna be fine, like it's fine. I don't know need to know everything. Like, so I don't need to completely understand why for Julie it's fine to say that the mushroom talks and it's a sacred being, and at the same time practicing a taxonomy on it. Like, which would seem like that's such a contradiction. But like, can how can you dissect the holy being? But in Julie's world, that's just not a that's not a source of conflict.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

That's who she is, that's her world. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Because I think, you know, as as an Indigenous woman going into academia, right? And when I write about indigenous science, people always want that sacred knowledge, right? They're like, give me some examples that are only within your community that you can share. And I'm like, well, those examples are limited. And also going back to write to many papers have been written about, for instance, the Muche, the Sapotec community. And then when I was able to read them, but they're in English and I have learned English, come gone to school. Um, there's no innovation acknowledgement, there is like nada. Um, even though these people came to our communities and collected all the data, they sat with our elders and like she mentioned, right? They didn't even get a copka or like uh uh a soda or a gasiosa, right? To be able to copy of the text, no? Yeah, or a copy of a book or a photograph, yeah. It wasn't even added to the paper, and they can do that. Like when you publish, you can add photos, but then these people are in a way expanding and excelling in their careers, right? Because I often find it um when I write books, right? I think it's shocking that it's hard to find indigenous people who have written about their communities. And obviously, there's always anthropologist, anthropologists, and people who, you know, just co-opted that knowledge. So I really liked and thank you for doing the way that you do your your storytelling, right? Because it's it's important even for us, despite our identities, to reflect on our positionality, right? Like, what is that knowledge that we can share, even if these are all our own communities, and what is that knowledge that we have to credit? Sometimes, like even Litos or my Diaz or my cousins don't have the same platform, right? And how do we make sure that their voices are also elevated? You know, at the end of the day, it's it's beyond just us, right? It's also and that's very beautiful that you were able to give these two women that platform as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Dr. Olivia is she's she's a Mije. She has a PhD in Boletus, so she's an expert in Porcini. She's one of the leading experts in Mexico. And the whole, I mean, she when she describes her life in a way that Dr. Olivia is the future, could be the future of these two girls. If she they decided to go into academia, I think they're more, they like, they're not necessarily purely academic, they want to do other things. But you know, they I mean, I just want to like, you know, commend all this generation of even women before Julian Lisa paved the way for so I think for me they like they were not directly my teachers, but I feel like they were my teachers. Uh, and they're my existential life teachers, my like animal guide spirits. Yeah, these two doctors in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah, thank you for highlighting them. Also, like one of the things that struck to me the most was that you are focusing on on women, right? And I mean, obviously the title is Daughters of the Forest. What was some of the obstacles that you faced trying to in a way create this, right? Because when we look at documentaries, as you were mentioning, men are elevated, especially in Latin America or Mexico because of machismo, marianismo. Like, what was it that some of the obstacles that you faced, if any obstacles that you faced when you were in a way um promoting the script for this for this documentary and trying to get support and resources to make it happen?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

You know, it's it's it's it's very interesting. It was I think it was on one hand, I think there was a lot of interest in in woman's stories, but I think so it that was never really the obstacle. The obstacle was no it was more about how the story was being navigated. Again, like it's not trying to turn them into something that they're not. It's not trying to turn them into a hero that's fighting the loggers. Because that's not their story, you know. And and I think at some point trying to finance the film, and you know, and it's a woven story, it's not about one topic. There's multiple topics. And um it's and it, but it's also not gonna give you all the data that you want. I'm not gonna tell you exactly which. Mushrooms to eat. I'm not gonna tell you all of the reasons why psychedelics work the way they work in your brain. I'm not gonna resolve the question whether the mushroom talks. So, in a way, for for the financing part, that was difficult. We had to get really partners that were really in tune with keeping things, some things as mysteries, some things as, you know, knowledge that doesn't belong to us, that we're just there as, you know, we're we can get a sneak into this world, which we don't belong to, but we can get a sneak into it, which is a whole ecosystem. But this ecosystem is also very frail, you know, it's it's it's consciously pressured by, you know, the extinction, the extinction of knowledge, the extinction of language, the extinction of our ecosystems as we know them. So it's not like it's not in danger, but but the conflict and trying to turn like is not the story's not about the loggers, you know. And that for that that was a really big challenge because it was, and also formally the film is is is less of a three-act structure. Like, you know, where you like the typical narrative hero journey. It was like it Lisa's story is a story of a sort of she's a node between a lot of elements, the grandmother, the forest, her parents. And and Julie is like she wants something, but the ending is a little bit more open. So I get it was more it was more of that. And then you know, like if we're completely honest, as much as we there is this, yeah, we like the trope of indigenous women, but we don't really like to acknowledge what they as them as further more than what they represent, you know, like us. The complexities of I think that was also I felt like it was like we're constantly wanting to turn them into a trope. And I and I I think we really as a team resisted that. And and we had really good mentors and we had a really a really good system of your advisory board and people that we worked with to get a better grip and an understanding. Because we do understand that we're outsiders. Yes, we're Mexican. I'm not I'm a Mexican woman, but my reality is very different from the reality, at least. So, first acknowledging where your position, then acknowledging that there's things you're never gonna enter. And and and but you know, I think that was kind of the biggest challenge is trying to tell a story that is more of a basket story where we all expect, you know, we expect answers, we expect to understand, understand everything, and and we expect certain stories of certain people because that fits our expectations. And and I think that was kind of one of the hard parts. I mean, apart from discovering the film itself and what it was gonna look like and the form and the whole explore formal exploration of what the film was gonna be and how we were gonna give presence to the non-human, apart from all of the you know, creative obstacles as a team. I think that was a that was uh that was a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah, and thank you for doing that because I feel like um when we are conflict, right? Even having something that's mystery or mysterious can create conflict for the viewers, right? Like they're like, oh, I wanted to know why. And like that's a conflict that oftentimes Western societies and cultures are in the way that our intention it can create, right? Because even like as a writer myself, right? Sometimes I'm like, I talk about indigenous science, like I was mentioning, and people are like, give me that mystery that why is there a mystery? Why is there not a guide on what I I can do as an academic to integrate Indigenous science into my research? And I think that you you do a great job, right? And I and I commend you for having an advisory board because oftentimes people don't want to invest the time or the resources to learn from an advisory board, right? They just want to do it themselves, and I think that that's in a way learning it from the fungal systems, right? Like fungi, because there are interconnected systems that do not necessarily just arrive by by themselves, right? Is this that is I guess individualism that we're often taught in in you know in the world that we live in.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, I I really, I, I really I I mean I I I'm very inspired by what you said, and also I think that was an inspiration for us. It's you know, this this collective. It's this this in the film what we try to create is we one and two create. Like it's a system, it's an ecosystem where things are woven together and it's it's part of a collective system. It's not, um, in a way, it sort of breaks away from the in the idea of the individual as a one-sole thing. Yeah. Because you that because the film had to be fungal, had to feel fungal as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah, thank you so much. And I mean, going off on that discussion, has there been any tensions that you have encountered while you know traveling the world and showing the documentary from the audience or any questions that you have been asked that you're like, did they understand what we were trying to portray in the film? Like anything of that that you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I mean, I think there's always uh, you know, uh, I think people always I mean, some people arrive. I mean, we've been very surprised with people that arrive with zero expectations. And people that come up with zero expectations get incredibly surprised. And the people from the fungal world really like it. Like they really get it. They they they're like, yeah, it's not as, you know, it doesn't have those slick time-lapses, but it feels very fungal. Like it feels very mycelium, it's a mycelium, like it's about the film's about relationships, whether it's relationship to the land, relationship to my elders, relationship to each other, relationship to myself. It's it's about relationships rather than me labeling each mushroom or like all the taxonomy of mushrooms or a psychedelic. So I think um there's obviously, you know, it's very interesting how it sometimes it was perceived by text and how it's perceived by the Polish. The Polish have a really strong relationship with the mushrooms, but some of them really wanted more information. Like, but I wanted to know more about what the like the indigenous feel like exactly about things, yeah, you know. And I was like, but what they're already saying is a lot. I mean, they have an entire catalogue of 200 mushrooms, like, and kind of five different names for one that looks kind of the same. I mean, that's that's already an immense amount of knowledge. I mean, what more do you want? But I guess so I guess it's it's very interesting. The culture, I mean, obviously, mushrooms are still creating a lot of fascination. Uh, and they're still very invisible. There's still a lot to learn from them. So they do create a lot of fascination. I mean, we we have been surprised at that CPH we had like nine screenings sold out in Australia. The second screening is about to sell out, sold by the audience award was very unexpected. I kind of blame it on the mycologist, but thank the mycologists. I mean, but but it it really depends. Like uh, we're we're about to start. Um, and by by the fall, we hope to start showing the film back home and in the communities and then start an impact campaign around, you know, in the and around indigenous knowledge, about the preservation of language and you know, and the elevation of foraging communities or the strengthening. So, so that's gonna be very interesting. I mean, we're very looking. I mean, in Chile, the the reception was absolutely unexpected and wonderful. Chileans are an incredibly microphilic community, and they have a really strong ancestral relationship with mushrooms, certain communities. So it's it, I mean, obviously, you never can like everybody has an opinion when they see a movie and they have expectations. But in general, we're we're very surprised, we're very grateful for every opportunity, and we just basically can't wait to, you know, to show it to foraging communities in Mexico. I mean, in a way, the way the film world is very contradictory because you kind of have to show the film around and then grade some bus and then go back home. Um, I don't know if you've heard this phrase in Spanish, pero nadie es profeta en su tierra. So I I think so so what we're but we're we can't wait, you know, to start, you know, uh, because ultimately the foraging communities are still, you know, in the market, they still have the worst spot. They the foraging is such hard work. They're like foraging for hours and walking for hours, and it's a perishable thing. If you don't sell it, the next day it's rotten. So they still in the they still like, you know, a lot of them still like in extreme poverty. Right now, mushrooms are very trendy, but for a long time they were a food store for people that couldn't afford to eat something else. So, you know, something that I spoke to the grandmother a lot, but she sort of mentions it in the movie is that they were her food stores. You know, I made her some like sometimes I asked her really mystical questions about you know what mushrooms represent for you. Do you think they're for your family? And she was like, no, you know, they're they're food and they're delicious, and you can cook them this way. Mushrooms. Uh they were so integrated in her part of life. Not so I think we're very we're looking forward to that stage of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

And it's and it's interesting, right? Because these are poverty in like foods that we have to consume, verdad, just because of that. And we can think of quinoa in you know, another example, asai also, and how they have been commodified in the sense that oh, they're healthy, but for so long, for generations before they were commodified, these were the food sources that communities had to rely on.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

No, oh no, and and you see it in markets now when you want to like bring the price completely like down, this little bunch of mushrooms were like two dollars, and you want to like, you know, be like, and you're like, it's not I mean, this is a lot of of of work. And I think, I mean, something that you mentioned is the populations of psilocybin are suffering from over-extraction. So this over demand has had a pressure on the on the ecosystem. That's the other thing. That I think, of course, with a psychedelic comp boom, I think there's there should be a little bit more acknowledgement and context and people's awareness of of where they source and the context of the stories of where this, I mean, this knowledge comes from and where the actual, you know, psilocybin comes from, whether it's forage. But yes, I mean, I mean, if you speak to some mycologists, some populations of of psilocybin are threatened by overextraction.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, thank you so much, Ophelia, for mentioning that. When I was reading um También the direct statement, um, it it mentioned, right, you're moving away from conquest narratives towards community and care. And I wanted to ask you, like, what influenced you to structure that way in the film and also to mention that, right? Because I feel like as we were discussing, oftentimes when we are looking at documentaries that portray Indigenous peoples, there's like this romanticiation of like conquest, or as you were mentioning, conflict. So, what inspired you to focus on community and care and approach that in the heart of the film as well?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

I don't I feel like there was this incredible, but you know, right now where there seems to a lot of violence permates and a lot of cruelty and a lot of uh, and you know, the the a lot of the people in power promote war and promote and and this so there's this sense and and like being kind almost or taking care of your elder felt like I mean I take care of someone older, which and my partner and I we live with an elder, and and I felt that was this very radical act, and I completely understood. I only understood it until you care for someone else, or even if it's an animal or a friend. That there was this radical act in being kind, and I know we are used to saying, Oh, but those stories are the boring stories. No, the big stories are the ones in which people kill each other and in which there's destruction and you know, there's monster. And I really wanted to subvert that. I was like, what if the monster is not a monster? And what if the most radical thing you can do is take care of someone else? And that taking care of someone else also involves taking care of your little tree or your plant. And I felt like those became really radical acts in an era where everything is taught to be, you know, not about being quiet and caring, but like bigger acts like heroic. We're still in that frame. And I think the stories we tell do matter, and how we narrate our future and imagine our future, and how we're gonna imagine the future, we don't reimagine our stories. So so for us, that felt really important. That was what I was also observing, and and that's how I wanted to practice my life, and and so and then so I felt like they were for me very radical acts. And I was like, why not change who we perceive as heroes? Why don't we transform that? That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

He kind of reminded me of like what is matriarchy, verdad? Because um, coming from a matriarchal society like the Sapotec community, like we still practice matriarchy. Uh, obviously, there's some things that we have lost because of religion, conversation in that matriarchal structure, but caring for elders, caring for your parents, caring for your grandparents has is a part of matriarchy, right? And oftentimes when we hear people say, Oh, we should return back to the matriarchy, I'm like, are people really willing to stop being selfish in the sense that they are open to caring for elders now or their parents? Because in Western society, like most parents are dropped off or elders are dropped off uh retirement homes because obviously the station sometimes like prevents us from taking care of our parents because we have to work or because you know they have health issues. But in a way, a matriarchy is in a way working with the community, right, to take care of our elders so that we don't just abandon them. And I think that it's it's hard with that, because that carrying umia, like we are taught individualistic, like individualism, but that like when I do this film, when I do this paper, this is Jessica's paper, this is Jessica's film. And as you were showing the film, right? This wasn't just a film about one indigenous woman. Like, even she talked about the elder talked about how it was communal knowledge, right? She brought it back to the community, and that was very beautiful to see because it's disrupting that mainstream discourse that everything has to be individualistic, for that, like even um, I have seen some of your interviews, like, or even this interview, right? You're not just talking about Otilia Padua, like the filmmaker, you're talking about the community, the advisory board that also shaped us the film. So I was wondering like, what else did you learn about creating this film that has in a way disrupted the ways that you have been taught, verdad? And this is like the beautiful thing about working with indigenous communities from different parts of the world. We are forced to unlearn and relearn the ways that we have been taught so that we can do better for the future and have more hope as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

I mean, I was educated in a very, you know, Western, uh prestige schools where you were where, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of very intelligent people, but they're very hierarchical, they're very vertical, and they're they're very driven by the sense of individual success. And I think something that we need to relearn is what is success? What does success look like and what does it mean? And I and also, you know, a little bit remove the myth of this authoral like genius that art. I mean, of course, there's artists that did paintings and there's there's obviously individual genius, I mean, in a sense, but are they? I mean, there they're also like a sense of collective shaped by their context, their wives helping out. I mean, someone was taking care of Bach's kids. He had like 11. I mean, I don't know, I don't know if he had 11 kids, but but I mean there's this whole myth, and what I've seen is there, you know, we've elevated these figures of the artist figure. And in the so we do the same with cinema and with filmmakers, but they're collect- you know, cinema is a collective piece of work, architecture. Like I was trained in architecture, we celebrate the star architects, but architecture is made so many parts and so many individuals, and plumbing and electricity, you know, all these collective things that come together, and and when they work the best is when they work together in the best sense and when they work collectively. And I really believe that in cinema. And I so I I think most beautiful films are are made with by a lot of people. Yes. I mean, sometimes a filmmaker is the one that is in front giving all the interviews, but I I strongly believe that there's so many forces. And I mean, this particular film, I don't think it's my vision. I think it's it it was it grew naturally by a collection of visions. You can always argue that another filmmaker works different and be like he imposes his vision or he expresses his vision and everybody wants to make it. But even then, a lot of people work on it, you know, a lot of people make that vision materialize. So I think cinema architecture and a lot of our stuff is you know reshape how we how we structure and that there are collective efforts, and and we ourselves biologically are not an individual. We're a collective of things and and we're in a better place, our biome is in shape. And I mean, I have one of the doctors in the mycology lab always when he says hello to you, he says hello to you and all of the organisms that shape you. Hello to you and all of your organisms, and I really like that about Dr. Jesus. And I think I've had a lot of teachers, and I feel like the best thing about life is when you are curious and re-retain that curiosity and don't think you know it all. And when you that when you just stay and think, oh, you know, I know it all, and there's nothing to be learned. I feel like it life is more interesting when you're still curious and when there's so much to learn, and you'd be surprised by the places that you can learn a lot of things from.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that because I feel like oftentimes even in academia, right? Like when I mentor indigenous students, um, they struggle in individualism, right? Because oftentimes they're like, well, so and so is this amazing Indigenous professor, um, or has done a TEDx, you know, TED talk, and they're amazing. But oftentimes, right, I'm like, are they really like just an individual? If like finding certain, like, you know, being the soul author? Like, what about the communities that they're working with? What about the communities that shape their viewpoints? And and sometimes, you know, like you were saying, being trained in Western academia, it teaches us that we have to aspire to be individualistic creatures so that we can, you know, have be successful within the metrics that academia instills in us, for that like they're like, oh Telia, you have to get like this award and you know, to be uh in the you know, that the success that that is defined in in our fields. So that's very beautiful that you you're sharing that as well. And then um my next question is like um to give us a look at the title, right? Daughters of the forest, because I think it's very beautiful. And like what inspired the title or what was the the process in in identifying the title of the film?

SPEAKER_00 40:17

You know, for many years the film the film took six years to make. So for a long time the film was called The Queendom. And we losing the Quendom was tough on many levels because we felt, I mean, I we I read this uh book uh called Radical Mycology, and it was the first time it referred to the fungal kingdom as the queendom, and I was like the queen. And so for us losing, I mean, there were a lot of reasons why we would lose the queendom eventually. The first one was there was always there was there was another documentary around that was called Quendom, and it was about a trans Russian artist. So that that was the first, and then there was like a bigger one, which but we didn't want to address it because we didn't want to lose the queendom, which is we have to have a Spanish title. This is a Mexican movie, you can't have an English title, and Queendom was untranslatable in Spanish. Reina, reinado, it was not the same. So actually, bigger than even having the other documentary was like, we don't have a Spanish title. And then the and then the third one, now that I thought about it later, is was actually the queendom is still hierarchical. The queendom is still the queen at the top, and the fungal world is much more like that. So, so after you know, like we went around the title for so many days, and then I was there's this friend of mine, she's a writer and she's a composer, a music composer from Texas. You'd like you'd be like very surprised. We were like navigating stories, and then she was like, you know, daughters of you know, mycelium chronicles, which is the second title which had to do with sci-fi, you know, referring back to sci-fi. It's a sort of second title in the movie, but it's the least one known. But it was like, you know, daughters of the forest, like, you know, an anthology, like making it something epic, but of an epic universe, but but anchoring it on the on the fungal world, and then and then sort of like she threw Daughters of the Forest, and I was like, ah, daughters of the forest, and then I like that because it there's so many daughters in that, and and so it's very simple, but it has all these levels, and and then and then actually, so it kind of again grew out of a collaboration. Like it didn't grow like like I didn't even come up with the title. And and but it was it made sense to know, like at the end, I was like, yeah, it makes sense too, you know. The queendom is is still a very strict organization, still like on top. And and this was like, who's the daughters? Are they the girls in the movie? Are they the fungus? Are they who are they? So there's many daughters in the movie, and and and and the forest has this being, and they're all part of this being. So this the forest has the elder. So it had this beautiful simplicity and at the same time a lot of potential for for layers about its meaning.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I think that when when I think I was, you know, when I was reading about the Queendom also and also like the Massile network, I think they missed the mark that like our forests are matriarchal, but also matri matrilineal, right? There's this normal hierarchy, doesn't necessarily mean that women are on the top. And I think oftentimes people like because translating indigenous contexts like matriarchy, matrilineal, they're missing really the point of what that means. But that like even when you translate to Spanish or English, there's the loss of of definition. Because even for the organization, earth daughters, um, we were which is a mystic word that mystic word that that means like close to earth daughters, but it it it shows a deeper relationship that as daughters of Mother Earth we have, right? But even when you're translating it to English or Spanish, it's it's different, it's different in that sense. And my last question, and we thank you for having this amazing interview, and and I hope that people watch your film and you know we watch. Ask you so where two people can watch it. It's like, what do you hope yours takeaway about indigenous knowledge, science, and our relationship to non-human worlds after watching Daughters for Earth? Like, what are some of the takeaways you hope that people can can come in with those intentions to want to learn, unlearn, or relearn from watching the film?

SPEAKER_00 44:21

I mean, I I certainly hope that next time they see like a mushroom, they can understand all the things that like all the stories that maybe fed into like you having a mushroom and like what it took for it to be in your plate or the person that's selling it to you. Or and you know, and the next time, I mean, I also hope, I mean, in the terms of psychedelics, if you've ever had it in Mexico, like having a bigger awareness of its context. And ultimately, I I think I hope that you know it requestions how we perceive what the heroes and the people that inspire us, and and that we consider that there are people out there trying to generate better futures constantly. There are people working there, they're not maybe in the front lines, they're not in the headlines, but they're there. And maybe uh maybe they inspire you to like do something around you or get more aware of or connect with other people and and you know, and also this idea of you know, and and the the other, you know, like how we relate. Because one thing is, okay, I'm gonna take care of the people I love, but what about taking care of your community? What about taking care of the people you don't know? I mean, it can expand to to the other and to to you know having some empathy on on the other and the difference and the richness of difference. And and and and and then when we talk about indigenity, it's not just one monolith. There's many groups, they have very different knowledge, they have very different relationships with their knowledge. And so, I mean, I hope that it inspires people. I mean, this these girls in the fungal world inspire uh and inspire people, then that you can work with the things around you if maybe you learn to observe your environment in a different way. And not only about like you trying to get out of it. What can you get out of it? Is like what can be, you know, in a way they when they forage, you know, they they touch the pilia so that it drops the spore, so that there's more mushrooms later on. And I really like that concept. I think we should apply it to a lot of things and how we approach life. Okay, I'm gonna take, but what am I gonna give back? This is sort of dance. And I mean, in reply to your question, the film is still in in sort of the festival circuit. Uh, there's more information in Daughters of the Forest film on Instagram, and and and we will start an impact campaign, so it means we hopefully will have a lot of impact screenings and uh and yeah, and and and and and it generates discussions and and bridges, you know, connects people. It's it's about you know, the our social web has been very damaged, and hopefully this film helps a little bit on how we weave back those connections and relationships between one. Julie is very different than Lise, and there's other groups of Indian community, and another thing, you know, for the Tlawica Pejacol, the thing is there Sapotecks there's a there's a lot of people that still speak Sarkotek, but some people in the north part don't necessarily understand everything in Sapotec than people that live in the lower valleys. So even the language, and the thing with the loss of the tlawica is that when we lose a language, we lose um, like we were talking about translation. We there's a loss of like an understanding of the world that we'll never maybe know because that language got lost. So, I mean, one of our impact things is to like preserve as much as we I mean, already Lee's has done a lot like by naming the mushrooms in Tlawica. They've named 100 versions that it was through the grandmothers and the elders that they were, she was able to catalogue all this incredible information. She has a published thesis that it's like a collective effort. I mean, it says Lise, but it's a collective effort. And yes, I think so. It's the sense that it's not, you know, it's not it's not like it's it's not a monolith. In Mexico is you know, Native Americans, whether it's in Bolivia, whether it's in Peru, it's they're complex and there's many forces, and there's and then there's, you know, there's evangelical indigenous people, there's Catholics. It's it's not a monolith that you can explain by thinking you understand the trope. It's it's it's it's nuanced and it's and yeah, so so hopefully the people will create some curiosity and at the same time accept that there's a mystery of life that we don't need to fully explain to engage with it. So we don't fully need to explain the other to empathize with it.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Yeah, and that's very important, right? Because like um my dad, my dad's community is Maya Chorti, my mom is Sapotec, and even within those communities like Maya Chorti, we tend to be more Christian, versus, you know, in Oaxaca, we're more Catholics, and obviously, even those religions are very different, and obviously there's people who who don't um identify with neither, right? It's also, you know, it's it's but in the United States, I feel like indigenity, especially from Mexico or Latin America, has become this monolithic topic, um, where oftentimes people everybody from Latin America is indigenous or everybody from Mexico is indigenous, and it's it's because people have been removed from what it means to be living in Mexico, verdad? Because there is like really clear divides, and you know, it's not denying the ancestry, because obviously there everybody has some type of ancestry, pero when it comes to indigenous communities, right, our people are still oppressed, they're still denied basic needs, even healthcare, education, access to education. Yeah. But in the United States, because people have a hard time understanding that they're also part of the oppressive regime in Mexico, or their identities are like they want to remove themselves from it, and they're like, Well, I'm also indigenous, and I'm like, you know, like it it does more harm than good sometimes, but uh it's it's hard to explain that to people, right? Because then they're like, Oh, you're policing identities, you're you're you're being violent, but in reality, it's like how do Indigenous peoples bring that to light, especially. I don't know if you have encountered that, you know, coming to the United States, but it's it's a different discourse that they're portraying about indigenity than than the realities.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I ultimately I've never lived in the United States. So like, I mean, I have a friend with me right now, she's from USC so now she was traveling to explain me as the whole identity, you know, how it's perceived in the racism in the US, and how there's still racism in Mexico, of course, and how it's different. I mean, I can grasp it in Mexico and in my you know, living from coming from the city, being educated in like fancy schools. That sort of structure, like even to me on train that has been decades. But I but I don't I still think I have a lot of learning to like what is it like? Even me, like even me being a Mexican, just visiting as you know, a bilingual Mexican here that just visiting is a very different experience. So I I I feel like I'm I'm still learning about the discourse and what they mean. I I do sometimes think like tend to make uh yeah, a monolith out of everything, or even the concept of community, you know, like oh community is this thick, that you know. And you know, community can be complicated too. They're there um it's not like it all works fancy and a utopia. It's it's it's agreements. And like, for example, in in in Lee's community, we we go to the commissariado and we go to the delegados and we explain them what they want to do, and this men that transition. And some of them, most of them are men. I mean, in some towns there's there's women, but in a lot of the towns there's still men. And and and and so, you know, the forms of of how they and for Lee's was very important that we approached in the whole form the community systems. And uh so even then, you know, navigating that, and I think uh I feel like I think I still have a lot to learn. And and some things I think I think are gonna be very difficult for me to deprogram myself completely from my upbringing. We thank you so much for your time today. No, I mean I appreciate like uh I really appreciate this conversation. I really appreciate and I know what with what you're doing. I mean, uh the first time I came across with Earth Daughters, I was like, yeah, exactly. And it was very inspiring and it was it was it was wonderful. I think there's there's a lot of audience that is, you know, a lot of you know, uh people like you, doctor, that are, you know, lots of like girls like you that I think you're could be like a really strong inspiration. There's a lot of girls in Latin America that need to know they're not there. There's there's all these possibilities of navigating that. They don't have to stay in like the past and the present. They can, you know, they can shape what like the the whatever they want to define for themselves and their communities in many different ways. And I think I love that platforms like you exist, and I I think I really appreciate the time that you had to share with with us. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode.