SYNOPSIS
In southern Mexico City there is a vast agricultural wetland known as The Chinampas. For more than 1000 years it has been cultivated by the Chinampero community of Xochimilco, whose unique farming culture became a cornerstone of the Mexica (Aztec) empire, and through time, helped transform the lake-filled Valley of Mexico into their nation’s capital and one of the world’s megacities.
Today, the Chinampas are a vital resource, providing food and fresh water to Mexico City while regulating its climate. And for the wildlife that once filled the lakes upon which the capital now sits, the wetland has become a rare haven in an area where few natural habitats remain.
But the encroaching megacity is now destroying the Chinampas and its resources. Toxic pollution, urban sprawl, industrial farming, illegal housing, commercial football facilities, and predatory tourism are infiltrating the territory. While local families increasingly abandon traditional farming in favour of more lucrative commercial opportunities.
Can a new farming school help save this UNESCO World Heritage site and RAMSAR Wetland of International Importance? And can the Chinampero’s way of life offer hope to young people around the world, who are increasingly anxious about their futures and the future of our planet, and who are searching for a more fulfilling alternative to life in a modern consumer capitalist society?
With beautiful visual sequences, interviews, and verité footage our film takes viewers on a cyclical narrative journey through 24 hours in the lives of our two main characters; chinampero farmer and environmentalist Felipe Barrera Aguirre (48) and his biology student daughter Mixtli (22). Through this we learn about the Chinampero’s rich culture, unique farming ecosystem, and spectacular wetland home, while investigating their complex struggle for survival.
Our film doesn’t just document the problem, it shows the solution in motion; a hopeful, intergenerational story, showing young people reclaiming their voice in the battle against a capitalist led climate crisis, and the intimate bond between a father and daughter fighting for the future of their community.
FELIPE BARRERA AGUIRRE
Felipe Barrera is a 48-year-old chinampero farmer, environmentalist, and co-founder of the Tlamachtiloyan Chinampaneca Chinampero School in Xochimilco, Mexico City.
A prominent figure in the chinampero community, Felipe blends deep ancestral knowledge with a passionate commitment to preserving his family’s traditional farming heritage.
He works tirelessly to protect the wetlands amid urbanisation and environmental challenges while passing this vital knowledge on to the next generation alongside his daughter Mixtli. Felipe’s leadership is central to the community’s fight for cultural survival and environmental resilience.
MIXTLI BARRERA FERNANDEZ
Mixtli is a 22-year-old biology student and daughter of Felipe Barrera. Passionate about blending science, art, and ancestral knowledge, she represents the new generation’s fierce determination to preserve her family’s heritage and protect their wetland ecosystem.
Through her studies and daily work alongside her father, Mixtli embodies the hope, resilience, and vital role of youth leadership, as they reclaim their voice and role in the battle against a climate crisis fuelled by unbridled capitalism.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
At this moment on earth, in the Anthropocene, we are altering our home planet and our lifestyles at increasing speed. In the West we’ve often celebrated these developments as ‘progress’, following our corporations’ and governments’ belief that human domination over the environment will lead to the construction of some kind of technological utopian paradise here on our earth.
But assessing our surroundings today we are realising that in fact we are destroying the only paradise we ever needed, or could ever dream of creating through our own design. And at the same time, while human behaviour is ultimately driven by a basic desire to put food on the table and to live a happy and fulfilled life within a caring community, can we say that working at a computer all day in order to buy food from a supermarket to eat in front of the TV fulfills those needs? Rarely during nine years living in London, one of the world’s megacities, did I feel fulfilled. Meeting Felipe and Mixtli helped me realise this.
In 2022, while creating a photo story about their community, their words and perspectives began to resolve what I hadn’t seen during the previous years. They explained how the Chinampero community understands that true fulfillment comes from putting your hands in the earth, pulling out vegetables you planted yourself, eating food alongside your neighbours on the land where it was grown, and respecting the life around you so you can all thrive without destroying the environment in the process. That’s what provides fulfillment. Not possessions, the internet, or money.
During one of our conversations Mixtli told me “when you work the land, you’re also working on yourself as a person.’’ I feel that is the ‘progress’ I should make as a human being right now. And in a time when positivity about the world is running low, I feel that a lot of young people would also like to hear what Mixtli and Felipe are saying.
- Mat Hay.