The Vertical Border (2022)

A Place Called Chiapas

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

Aranzazú, a memory of ruins

The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.

Astral

The story of Astral, champion show jumping and his path to national competitions.

Mis Catrinas Mestizas

With the commercialization of the Day of the Dead as well as the growing popularity of Halloween, the Catrina wonders if Mexico will eventually forget about her and their traditions.

Radio Silence

Mexico, March 2015. Carmen Aristegui, incorruptible journalist, has been fired from the radio station where she has worked for years. Supported by more than 18 million listeners, Carmen continues her fight. Her goal: raising awareness and fighting against misinformation. The film tells the story of this quest: difficult and dangerous, but essential to the health of democracy. A story in which resistance becomes a form of survival.

My Life Inside

Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.

Voyages au centre de la Terre : Dans les pas de Jules Verne

Plot unavailable

La Mami

One of the rooms inside the legendary Barba Azul Cabaret has become a shelter for the girls working there: the women's bathroom. Every night La Mami, who's in charge of the bathrooms, offers them the warmth and the advice they need to take on the challenge they face in the dance hall.

Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration

Amid Guanajuato's vibrant streets, an aging filmmaker becomes a modern Don Quixote, joined by a spirited young animator as his loyal Sanchia. Together, they navigate themes of mortality, unfulfilled dreams, and the fragile line between madness and clarity, uncovering the transformative power of light, art, and the landscapes that shape our souls.

Cenote

Cenotes—sources of water that in ancient Mayan civilization were said to connect the real world and the afterlife. The past and present of the people living in and around them intersect, and distant memories echo throughout immersive scenes of light and darkness.

Farewell Ferris Wheel

Farewell Ferris Wheel explores how the U.S. Carnival industry fights to keep itself alive by legally employing Mexican migrant workers with the controversial H-2B guestworker visa.

A Million Smiles: The Story of Baseball Without Borders

"A Million Smiles" is a documentary film showcasing the Baseball Without Borders Foundation based in San Francisco, CA for nearly 30 years. Baseball Without Borders Foundation brings joy to children throughout the world through a love of America’s favorite pastime, baseball. They provide new and used baseball and softball equipment to children of all ages and they donate all equipment free of charge. Donations have been made to children in 52 countries since 1995. Baseball Without Borders has no paid staff. 100% of donated funds help to promote friendship, recipients' native cultures and connection with the less fortunate of our world. This is the first film in Baseball Without Borders history. This film focuses on bringing awareness to the culture and children of Yucatán while giving viewers a sense of the impact that Baseball Without Borders has been creating for more than 27 years as it carries out its mission to weave joy through the world by offering the gift of baseball.

Continue Being: Café Tacvba

A rock band traveling many places of the world, and on planes, buses, in hotels and dressing rooms we discover the creative process that brings them together, their friendship, frustrations and the desire of still being a rock band, the most important rock band in Mexico, on the year that they celebrate 20 years of being Café Tacvba.

América

This sparkling, irreverent, and deeply emotional piece of creative nonfiction announces the arrival of a standout filmmaking partnership. When their father is hauled away, a colorful trio of brothers — a sibling team to rival Moe, Larry, and Curly — step up to take care of América, their grandmother, in Colima, Mexico. Rodrigo, Diego, and Bruno are stilt-walkers and acrobats and Elvis impersonators and unicycle riders — when not running the family's agriculture warehouse. With a loose, offhanded charm, Stoll and Whiteside capture the family’s natural performative streak in a way that makes even the most explosive, dramatic moments feel organic. The endearing, genuine scenes between Diego and his grandmother celebrate the possibility of multigenerational connection.

Muxes

Highlighting the unique culture of the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, Mexico, this groundbreaking documentary chronicles the lives of those who identify as muxes, a widely recognized third gender.

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

Cartel Land

In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.

Matria

My grandfather fought alongside Pancho Villa, became Master Mason, was an elected official who represented Oaxaca three times, and president of the national Association of Cattle Hands. In 1942, he formed the Legion of Mexican Fighters, a group of 100,000 cattle hands training to repel a possible Nazi invasion in Mexico. His story of success, however, held a secret that affected my family, and that I discovered while making this documentary.

The Renaissance of Mata Ortiz

The Emmy-winning story of how an American treasure hunter and a Mexican artist transformed a dying desert village into a home for world-class art.

Maximilian of Mexico: The Dream of Ruling

The life and struggles of Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria of Habsburg-Lorraine (1832-1867), emperor of the Second Mexican Empire as Maximilian I of Mexico from 1864 to 1867 (under the wing of Emperor Napoleon III and the French Empire), his tragic confrontation with Mexican leader Benito Juárez, the defeat of the will and the end of a dream.

El Contrato

This documentary from Min Sook Lee follows a poverty-stricken father from Central Mexico, along with several of his countrymen, as they make their annual migration to southern Ontario to pick tomatoes. For 8 months a year, the town's population absorbs 4,000 migrant workers who toil under conditions, and for wages, that no local would accept. Yet despite a fear of repercussions, the workers voice their desire for dignity and respect.

Common Ground

An internet personality journeys to his hometown on the border between Texas and Mexico to visit family members, only to discover that his family’s immigration story parallels that of people risking everything to immigrate to the U.S. today.

Utopia of Death

This short film focuses on the mysterious and legendary Seri Indians who live in a utopian colony off the west coast of Mexico.

Speaking of Buñuel

Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Though sexually diffident, he frequently worked in the erotic drama genre; though personally quite conservative, his films are florid, flamboyant, and utterly bizarre.

The Desert Wagon

A couple of artists travels through the Mexico desert to present their puppet show.