A Place Called Chiapas

“An exemplary documentary that vividly and lucidly explores a modern Mexican standoff” (David Stratton, Variety), Nettie Wild’s A Place Called Chiapas won the 1999 Genie Award for best documentary feature, and became a surprise hit during a two-week run in New York. The film’s subject is the armed uprising in the poverty-stricken Mexican state of Chiapas, where a mainly Mayan force called the Zapatista National Liberation Army, led by a mysterious masked man with the nom-de-guerre of Subcomandante Marcos, has engaged the Mexican military in a guns-and-internet confrontation; the New York Times called it “the world's first postmodern revolution.” Wild and crew spent eight intense months at ground zero; although there is no doubt where Wild’s sympathies lie, those familiar with her treatment of other such confrontations and conflicts — The Rustling of Leaves, Blockade — will know better than to expect a standard, one-sided political tract. Wild’s politics are partisan, but her thoughtful, reflective films always foreground her own biases, are never afraid of troubling ambiguities and complexities, and pull no punches in their warts-and-all portraits of both sides in a conflict. “First rate, engaged filmmaking” (Now Magazine). Colour, 35mm. 90 mins.