[Stephanie█s voice] I love Mexico.

I love the colors, the cuisine, and especially, the mezcal.

I first explored Mexico on my own during the Oaxaca Film Festival, which I was attending as a Producer on a friend's film.

Oaxaca is where I first tasted the agave liquor native to Mexico: Mezcal.

and while in Mexico City, I visited the Mezcal and Tequila Museum at Garibaldi Plaza.

Twice.

I became obsessed.

So obsessed that years later, I wrote and directed a series of short films, “Para Todo Mal...Para Todo Bien: The Mezcal Trilogy.” [male character speaks Spanish] [femle character tries to speak Spanish] Liquid courage.

[in Spanish] [in Spanish] [an attempt at Spanish] [Stephanie█s voice] Now that I am returning to Mexico for the first time in over five years, I want to dig deeper.

I wish to see what lies beyond the mezcal, and the colors, and the rhetoric my government is sometimes spewing.

What do individuals in Mexico truly feel about life, love, and culture?

How does that rhetoric up north affect them, if at all?

And where do they find their voice?

♪ ♪ Steadee█s Groove ♪ ♪ Hi, I'm Stephanie.

I'm a 33-year-old American filmmaker and a complete cinema nerd.

I love the oldies, the goodies, the New Waves or Golden Age, you name it, I█m in.

On my 33rd birthday, I decided to travel the world to meet and document other filmmakers my age.

Travel with me to over 33 countries to meet the storytellers who are dynamically challenging the status quo of the world today.

Together we will watch their films, hear their stories, engage with their cultures, and perhaps, learn a little bit about life, love, cinema, history, and me.

[in Spanish] [Stephanie█s voice] Like me, Atzin has the bug to travel, explore, and live abroad.

He spent eight years living in Argentina, but despite the desire to continue to see the world, Atzin has decided to return to his roots and pursue his filmmaking career in Mexico.

Atzin█s films tend to have a more European feel to them, and while he sees them as being universal themes, he█s not quite sure that they're entirely Mexican enough.

But do they need to be?

[Atzin] Ever since I was little I was really drawn into cinema.

Like I had a terrible fixation with like slasher movies, like “Friday The 13th,” especially, “Halloween.” And then when I was probably like 11 or 12, I used the family camera that we had and I started to shoot my films.

[character in film shuffles through drawer for knife] [creepy humming] [character breathes heavily] [Stephanie█s voice] Born in Mexico City but raised in Puebla Atzin is reconnecting with the city of his birth and questioning what it means to be a Mexican filmmaker in today's globalized world.

Dating back 13,000 years, modern society, government and politics would not exist as we know it without the civilizations of pre-Columbian Mexico.

Such contributions include a sophisticated writing system, calendars, astronomy, agriculture, mathematics, and more.

From the Olmecs to the Zapotecs, the Mayans to the Aztecs, the history of Mexico is rich.

And massive cities were built.

At the height of their empire, the Aztecs ruled 5 million people.

Then the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés arrived in Veracruz in 1519, and by 1521, he conquered the Aztec territory renaming it New Spain.

The diseases brought in by the Spanish devastated the indigenous population.

As a result of Spanish colonization, the influence of the Catholic Church grows exponentially, and today around 78% of Mexicans consider themselves Catholic.

Mexico declared independence on September 16th, 1810, and fought a war that lasted 11 years until Spain accepted this independence.

100 years after that, Mexicans would rise up again to fight against unequal distribution of land, wealth and power.

This was the Mexican Revolution from which its current 1917 constitution hails.

Officially, the United Mexican States.

This country of 130 million is made up of 31 states and one federal district.

Mexico is the 6th most traveled country in the world, and its $2.6 trillion economy is the 15th largest in the world.

That's larger than Turkey and Sweden combined.

[Atzin] I was always really interested about maybe going abroad to study, just moving there really gave me like an experience of life that, I would have never had if I just stayed here.

The film school that I went to, they really pursue yourself to really search your own voice.

And I kind of found out that my own voice really is more related to like, maybe arty cinema or like European cinema, than maybe conventional cinema.

[film clip in Spanish] [Atzin] My first film was called “Permancia Voluntaria” or, “Voluntary State,” and it was kind of like a meditation, or a reflection about open relationships in big cities.

[clip in Spanish] [Stephanie█s voice] I was delighted to find the cinema culture of Mexico City alive and thriving.

Today, the Mexican film industry is the third largest in Latin America, known mostly for its famous “Three Amigos:” directors Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro Iñárritu, all men of the same generation from Mexico, who have managed to successfully break into Hollywood, and continue to bring home awards.

Mexico's cinematic glories first flourished during what is known as the Golden Era of Mexican cinema, from about 1936 to 1959.

Known for its slapstick comedy, pastoral settings, and ranchera music.

During World War II, much of the U.S. and European- centric film production curtailed, and Mexico swept in to take advantage of this gap in the industry.

Its geographic proximity to Hollywood also helped Mexico to become recognized on an international scale.

It is even said that the Oscar statuette is modeled after Mexican director, Emilio Fernández.

Mexican actress femme fatale María Félix became a superstar and appeared in such notorious Golden Era flicks as “Doña Bárbara,” “Río Escondido,” and “Enamorada.” And heartthrobs Pedro Infante, and Jorge Negrete charmed Mexican audiences for years.

[character sings in Spanish] [Atzin] Mexican cinema was very popular back in the days, because it really talked about the culture of Mexico.

I think.

I think a lot of people do saw themselves in that kind of cinema.

[Atzin] I think, right nowadays, a lot of the most interesting things going on in Mexico is documentaries.

There is a film called “Tempestad,” which deals with the violence in Mexico regarding the war on drugs.

It's a very poetic movie, and it's just a brilliant movie.

And she's a really great documentary filmmaker.

♪ No te llegan ni señales.

♪ ♪ A lo mejor son casuales, no te llegan mi señales.

♪ ♪ Hay niño tanto.

♪ ♪ He intentado cada cosa.

♪ [Stephanie█s voice] If a big city is what gets you going, than Mexico City is for you.

At a population of 25 million, it is one of the largest, oldest, and most congested places in the world.

Mexico City was built on a grand lake, and between 100 BCE and 700 CE, the Pre-colombian city, Tenochtitlán, built nearby present day Mexico City, was the largest city in the Americas.

It would be easy to feel as though your voice is lost amongst the crowds of Mexico City.

But Atzin is a filmmaker in Mexico who rises above, and to me, his creative voice is loud and clear.

♪ Yo tengo muchas experiencias.

♪ [Atzin] For my first short film in Mexico, it was maybe my first time to work with men.

And it was also weird because they were all heterosexuals.

And even though the context was kind of like a gay theme, they knew the universiality of the themes.

And they were like okay with it.

[Atzin in Spanish] [Stephanie] Maybe some jalapeño on the side.

[Atzin] Okay.

[Atzin in Spanish] In one film festival in the United States, I got the question that, why did I choose to... to show this story within a gay context?

Because it is a very bleak, dark, short film.

I think it's a very downer.

So maybe I thought he felt, like, offended by how depressing it looked.

And maybe I was just making some sort of, like, negative commentary towards homosexuality.

And I was like, you know what?

I really didn't intend that.

It's just like, it's my reality.

I'm a gay man.

And I thought it was also like the perfect scenario to do it, because, we were pioneers in really experiencing all that online relationship before heterosexual persons.

[Stephanie] Do you consider any of your films autobiographical?

[Atzin] Maybe the only film of mine that I would say that it's semi-autobiographical would be “Viceversa,” because I was acting in it.

It kind of was like a fictional, a fictionalized representation of what it meant to me to leave to Argentina, [film clip in Spanish] [film clip in Spanish] Don█t cry for me Argentina.

[Atzin] It actually became then kind of like prophetic because, I think it was three years later, I ended up leaving.

And all of those feelings that I thought I would happen.

They did.

So I would say that, maybe, that is autobiographical.

[Atzin] We live in such a globalized world that wherever you go, you're always going to be in touch with different type of cultures.

My 8 years in Argentina really made me interested in these kind of intercultural relationships.

Maybe me as a Mexican in some Asian country with an Asian person, or maybe someone from I dunno, Africa who is living there.

So like, it's just like that, that specific context is just like so particular that it just draws me in to like, let's figure out what that means, what that takes me.

[Atzin] We arrived.

[car door closes] [key clanks in gate] [Atzin calls in a sing-song way to his mother] [Atzin taps on door] [Stephanie] What does she wish for you in your life?

[Atzin repeats the question in Spanish] [Atzin█s mom answers in Spanish] [Atzin chuckles] [Atzin█s mom in Spanish] [Atzin and his mom speak the same words together, in Spanish] [Atzin chuckles] [in Spanish] [film clip in Spanish] [Stephanie] You talk about your second film as the one of you█re most proud of.

Can you tell me more about that?

It puts a smile on my face.

It has a really significance to me.

It really talks to me in a very personal level.

Back in the day that I did it, I was having a really troubled relationship with my father.

Like, we really just, like, started like fighting about everything.

And we didn't, couldn't even have the conversation.

I kind of like, drew that to the short film.

And I took it to the extreme, because, in a way, you see in the film, that the son kind of like kills the father and, he thinks it█s a way to get rid of him.

And then he just finds out, that it█s really not a way.

So when actually I showed it to my father, he kind of cried, and he said, “You really don't want to kill me, right?” And I was like... “Obviously I don't want to kill you,” “but...” “You understand that, why I did this movie?” And he's like, “Yeah, I understand it.” [in Spanish] [Atzin] Nowadays we have a better relationship for sure.

I don't know if, like, the short film was necessarily the thing that allowed us to get to the point that we are now, but at least it made us aware of the problem that we had.

[Atzin█s father, in Spanish] [in Spanish] [Stephanie█s voice] What is more Mexican than mariachi?

This might sound like a gross stereotype, but after visiting present-day Garibaldi Plaza, I realize that mariachi is both a cliché that should not be singularized as the ultimate Mexican experience.

And yet, it is a real part of Mexican heritage that is still celebrated today.

At least in Garibaldi Plaza, where tourists gather to pay rancheros for a song.

What's even more, I learned that mariachi is directly related to the Golden Era of cinema.

[mariachi singer in film clip] Of course mariachi music came first, but the cinema of the ‘30s, █40s and ‘50s celebrated, explored, and even exploited it to the point that mariachi became even bigger than its britches.

[cheering in film clip] Many scholars believe, in fact, that the overriding association with Mexico and mariachi is because of these films and their popularity, both in Mexico and abroad.

[mariachi calls] [Stephanie█s voice] Since we are in Mexico and my character in “The Mezcal Trilogy” has an obsession with Mexico, we decided to film a few extra pickup shots for the opening of the film.

[Tizzz] We are rolling.

So we find ourselves in the Zócalo Square, the historic center of Mexico City, and home to the Plaza de la Constitucion.

As we are filming a spinning hero shot of me in the square, delirious with enthusiasm for Mexico, and I am spinning take after take, getting dizzier and dizzier.

I cannot help but notice the descending flag in the background.

And the military marching band arriving to join in the pomp and circumstance.

I think about Atzin█s film, “#Hashtag,” which I'm realizing now has a snippet of this same scene here at the Zócalo Square during the flag ceremony.

And I think about the stark contrast between Atzin█s film, representing a modern time with sexually liberal values and gay characters interacting with technology.

Unable to truly communicate.

And the juxtaposition of this seemingly very formal, militaristic ceremony representing a history of a country that has often been seen as conservative in its social values.

So which one is more “Mexican?” Or maybe we should be asking, which one is truer to the Mexico of today?

Atzin█s film?

or the Zócalo square?

At the time of my visit, Atzin was working on his first feature film, a documentary about migration and deportation back to Mexico.

We were lucky enough to visit an organization run by some of the deported migrants that Atzin features in his documentary: an organization called Deportatos Unidos En La Lucha.

The Deported United In The Fight.

[Atzin] The documentary deals about, deported migrants that used to live in the United States and now are back in Mexico.

So it kind of deals about the reality that they face when they come to a country where they belong, but they actually don't want to be there anymore.

Even though they were invisible citizens, they still were able to have a life that they were not able to have here in Mexico, because of economic reasons or political reasons or whatever.

I kind of feel I identified with their situation because, I mean, I was also a migrant, maybe not an illegal migrant.

I did it on a proper way with all of the paperwork.

But that doesn't really take the reality that I was also a migrant, It█s a subject that it's very... that resonates right now, because of the whole rhetoric that the U.S. government is having towards migrants in general, but especially on Mexicans, because we're like the “bad hombre,” we're like the “rapists,” we█re like the... just people that go and make a mess of the United States, which is not true.

I mean, probably there are some cases that is that.

But you cannot like generalize.

[Stephanie█s voice] Six years after I went to Mexico City to film Atzin for “Cinema Nomad,” I've returned.

In the interim years, Atzin and I have grown closer.

And I consider him to be like family.

He's also been a main contributor to “Cinema Nomad” as an editor, as a translator, and he even crewed on our Argentina episode.

Atzin and I took a trip to Oaxaca, to revisit the place that we first met.

Approximately 285 miles from Mexico City, Oaxaca is situated in the country's southwest.

It is known for lush valleys, mountainous landscapes, delicious cuisine, incredible textiles, archeological ruins and, yes, mezcal.

Atzin and I strolled the colorful Old City Center, founded in 1529.

We visited Monte Albán, the ruins of the former capital of the Zapotecs, dating back to the eighth century BCE.

We visited Mitla, a Zapotec religious center, and I especially loved the smaller sites of Lambityeco with its ncredible reliefs.

And my favorite was Yagul.

Where you can marvel at the gorgeous countryside and get lost in the labyrinth of the settlement known locally as Pueblo Viejo, built between 750 and 950 C.E.

On the way back to Oaxaca City, we visited the home of a family who has been cultivating mezcal for generations.

Atzin and I sat down at one of Oaxaca█s many rooftop terraces.

Since we first visited him, Atzin█s released his migration documentary, “Entre Tierras.” He's begun developing his next feature length documentary, and a film that he co-wrote, “Ceremonia,” has had its world debut.

[Atzin] It's a movie that deals with what you want in life and life saying, “no” to you.

And I was just in the moment of like editing “Entre Tierras.” So I didn't know for a fact that I was going to finish that film, and I was just making amends, of like, well, you know what?

What?

Maybe you're never going to make it as a director.

So I poured my heart and soul in that script.

Yeah, I'm super proud of that film.

Nowadays, Mexican filmmakers are... being more diverse.

It█s like okay, we do have the... the political realism that deals with like the problematics of the country, which are necessary.

We also have like this very commercial cinema that really aims to just be box office hits.

It was last year, or two years ago, that “Tótem” was released.

And it was just a film that I completely loved.

And it's a female director with a very interesting sensitive, sensibility.

A lot of the filmmakers that are doing the most interesting cinema nowadays in Mexico and cinema, I think they are female filmmakers.

[Stephanie] You know, thinking back again to our younger days in Oaxaca, when we first met at the film festival... Are you... where you thought you would be now, ten years later?

Are you on the path you want to be?

Are you telling the stories you want to be?

I'm definitely on the right path.

I mean, when I was younger, in my 20s, I always said, I want to have my first film done by 30.

And when I got to 30, I was like, okay, I'm far from that.

But I didn't mind because always like, when you're in your 20s, you have a lot of ideals and you have a lot of like, goals.

One of the things of being older is just to acknowledge that maybe you're not going to get exactly what you want, but at the same time, it makes you really sure of what you want.

You just need to be patient.

[Stephanie█s voice] Atzin is stepping up to the plate and raising his voice.

As a Mexican, as a 33-year-old, and most importantly, as a filmmaker with a story to tell.

♪ ♪ Traditional Mariachi performed by Mariachi Real de Colima ♪ ♪ To learn more about the “Cinema Nomad” filmmakers, and dive deeper into the exciting world of global cinema, visit our website, CinemaNomad.TV [Steadee█s footprints] “Steadee on!” [film slate]