Thesis Film
Footprints in the sky
(Huellas en el cielo)
© 2021. Length: 39 minutes. 4K 1:85 aspect ratio.
Directing, Editing · Daniel Rodríguez
Features: Juana Durán Charicata, Irma Tomás Sebastián, Alberto Charicata, Catalina Charicata
Faculty Supervising · Jay Needham, Cade Bursell, Antonio Martínez
Special Acknowledgments to · College of Arts and Media - Southern Illinois University, Illinois Migrant Council in Cobden, Ecosistémica A.C., The University Film and Video Association (UFVA) and IACA (Integrity Arts and Culture Association)
"Footprints in the sky” collects road trip anecdotes from the first group of Purepecha families that arrived to Cobden, a small village in Southern Illinois, coming from Cherán, Michoacán, Mexico. Their stories interlace with footage of Monarch butterfly migration across North America to delve into P'urhépecha world vision, in which people travel guided by the spirit of the butterflies. The short film shows the present lives of P'urhépechas as visual artists, grandparents, or as owners of local businesses, recounting their struggles either when walking across the US - Mexico border several times or while migrating within the southern United States prior to settling down in Cobden.
"Footprints in the sky" merges elements from documentary film, experimental narrative, and the film essay, using Monarch butterfly migration as a metaphor in dialogue with the stories of migrant families from Cherán now living in Cobden. This multidisciplinary effort aims to shed light on the potential of the Monarch butterfly engaged with Indigenous Futurism as a multidimensional metaphor to negotiate trans-national corporate power, Nation-State borderland management, and the criminalization of immigration in a context marked by the continued prominence of neoliberal policies in North America.
This film serves as my thesis project to graduate from the MFA program in Interdisciplinary Media Arts at SIU Carbondale. It was developed throughout nine months, having begun principal photography over the Summer of 2020, when I started recording Monarch butterflies in Southern Illinois. If you wish to know more about the project, the people that appear in it, and Monarch butterfly migration, you can send a private message here.