Titled Montaña, the feature is made together with Diego Enrique Osorno.
Exile Content Studio and author and director Diego Enrique Osorno announced that Montaña will be the first feature-length documentary to come out of their multi-project agreement.
The film, they added, is being filmed in Spain after having started filming in Chiapas, Mexico at the beginning of the year.
The documentary explores the dramatic and historical mission of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), also known as the Zapatistas, the militant and political group with a socialist and libertarian tone originally from Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
After receiving a personal invitation from an EZLN delegation to embark with them on a journey across the Atlantic Ocean, from Chiapas to Spain, the Mexican journalist, writer and director Osorno and the Uruguayan director of photography María Secco accompanied the Zapatista group aboard a Nordic boat, La Montaña, to document this journey of great symbolic weight as they lead an indigenous movement that tries to establish alliances with Europe.
After 52 days at sea during the end of a global pandemic, the ship arrived in Spain on June 24, 2021. Osorno and Secco, together with the Exile team, will continue with the production of the film in Spain, using their notes and hundreds hours of recordings captured on board.
Exile’s Isaac Lee and Arturo Sampson are the acclaimed producers responsible for this new feature documentary.
“At Exile we are proud and delighted to collaborate with Diego in this fantastic project that responds to a direct invitation to him from the EZLN to join them on this very symbolic journey,” commented Arturo Sampson, producer of Montaña.
“We are convinced that the film that will emerge from this adventure will be as necessary and valuable as it is spectacular, both artistically and historically,” he added.
Osorno, for his part, stated: “After 52 days aboard La Montaña, and having crossed the Atlantic, we disembarked with our hearts in our throats, with four thick notebooks full of notes and more than a hundred hours of filmed material. Hanging still in a corner of the old ship, there was a forgotten embroidery created by Marijose, Bernal, Yuli, Xime, Lupita, Felipe and Caro on that long voyage across the high seas, sometimes stormy, sometimes meditative, but always adventurous and idealistic. The now legendary squadron 421 will continue with the mission entrusted to them by the native Zapatista peoples: to rebuild this sick world.”
Montaña is one of several ongoing projects from Exile Content Studio and Osorno. Production will run until the end of 2021.
