Fungal Cinema: Otilia Portillo Padua on Profiling Two Indigenous Mycologists in her SXSW And CPH:DOX Doc ‘Daughters of the Forest’

Otilia Portillo Padua’s Daughters of the Forest is crafted with artistry that simply demands the big screen. Indeed, with a kaleidoscope of eye-popping colors, and an otherworldly sound design that feels both foreign and familiar, the film is truly mesmerizing — and more than lives up to its “immersive sci-fi documentary” hype. Set in Mexico’s magical forests (for now, as the logging industry is fast-decimating what’s left of the territory), Daughters of the Forest is guided by a pair of young female mycologists, Lis and Juli, both hailing from Indigenous communities where generational knowledge, from language to the secrets of fungi, is fast-vanishing as well. “Behind every mushroom there is a story,” as one scientist puts it, and the Mexican director is determined to follow not just the two humans on a mission to restore culture to science, but engage with the cinematically stunning fungi as well (some of which seem birthed from the Alice in Wonderland underground).

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.