Ways to Traverse a Territory
The film immerses the audience in the mountainous landscape of Chiapas—humid, vibrant, and full of textures and sounds. Sheep, wool, braided hair, and the colors of traditional garments create a choreography of life at the foot of the mountain, where Tsotsil women teach how to honor the land and preserve the memory of their territory.
In Chiapas, two worlds intertwine across generations of women in a single family. Tsotsil women—shepherds and wool weavers—tend their flocks, honoring the memory of the land and their cultural identity.
In Ways of Traversing Territory, the director journeys to the moss-covered mountains just outside the city, following Doña Sebastiana and her daughters as they care for their sheep, a practice that connects them to the earth and preserves ancestral knowledge. Revisiting childhood photographs that reveal her own bond with the land, the director weaves an essayistic exploration of what it means to inhabit a place in constant transformation.
Through staged scenes, archival materials, and intimate conversations, the film examines the inseparable ties between people, place, and nature. Political and environmental changes ripple across this landscape, and the women’s practices become gestures of care, memory, and belonging. Ways of Traversing Territory is a tender, immersive meditation on identity, landscape, and the passage of time.
Gabriela Domínguez Ruvalcaba
A Mexican filmmaker. Her artistic practice explores documentary and experimental forms of storytelling that arise from her interest in themes where memory and time becomes present and the sense of territory and ecology. Her practice is also nourished by interdisciplinary experiences between dance and film. Her work has been showcased in film festivals like LOCARNO, IDFA, Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine- Latinoamericano de la Habana, Cartagena Film Festival, Morelia Film Festival, FICUNAM. She has been recognized by the National System of Art Creators in México.(2020-2023). She directed La danza del hipocampo and Ways to traverse a territory. Gabriela is an alumni of the Berlinale Talents as well as the DocStation, Flaherty Seminar Fellow and Talents Guadalajara. Her documentaries has been participated in documentary Labs and Pitching such as Conecta Chile, Rough Cut Lab Montevideo, Plataforma IB DOCSMX, SANFIC Industry, FIDBA WIP.
Director: Gabriela Domínguez Ruvalcaba
Producer(s): Pía Quintana Enciso
Production: Bosque Negro & Estudio Errante
Language: Spanish, Tsotsil
Subtitles: Polish, English
