María Sojob (Mexico)

Maria is a Tsotsil woman who acquired her ch'ulel (soul, spirit, consciousness) in the ancestral territory of Ch'enalvo' (water cave). She is a descendant of the Sojob lineage, of rebellious dreamers. She earned my BA in Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Chiapas and a MA in Documentary Film from the University of Chile, with a scholarship from the Ford Foundation. She contributed to news in Tsotsil on television, later she produced various audiovisual materials, such as video letters with Tzotzil girls and boys. She produced, directed and edited the medium-length documentary Bankilal/Elder Brother (2014), awarded best documentary at the Morelia Indigenous Film and Video Festival and selected at Berlinale Native, Edinburgh Film Festival and Ficvaldivia, among others. In 2019, her film Tote_Grandfather premiered at the XVII Morelia International Film Festival, where it won the La Musa and Ambulante awards. The film has toured various festivals nationally and internationally. She is also a programmer and co-founder of Cine Bolomchon, a community collective that generates spaces for artistic interaction through training, exhibition and filmmaking and a member of Mexico’s National System of Art Creators, to write film scripts in Tsotsil.