3 DAYS, 3 YEARS

Synopsis:

Elena, a Mayan Tzotzil woman from San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas, is challenged by the uses and customs of her people when an almost entirely male community assembly appoints her as a municipal trustee. As an authority, she introduces us to the complexity of the system of socio-political organization in San Andrés. During her term of office, the traditional practice of masculinity begins to be questioned.

Florencia Gómez Sántiz

Short Bio

Florencia Gómez Sántiz, Maya Tzeltal woman from Oxchuc, Chiapas. She has a bachelor's degree in Intercultural Communication from UNICH and a master's degree in Cultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Chiapas. She has been a script translator, producer, screenwriter and correspondent for television programs and kids news in Chiapas. She studied at the San Cristóbal de las Casas Documentary Film School, where she directed ‘3 Days, 3 Years’, her first short film.

Full Bio

Florencia Gómez Sántiz (México, 1987) is a Maya Tzeltal woman from Oxchuc, Chiapas, México. Intercultural communicator with a master's degree in Cultural Studies from the UNACH.

She studied in the San Cristóbal de las Casas Documentary Film School, where she directed her first short film, "3 Days, 3 Years", which was presented at national and international festivals. It won the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival Etiuda&Anima in Krakow, Poland, for Best Documentary Short Film, and the New Filmmaker Award at the Latino & Native American Film Festival in Connecticut, U.S.

Florencia has worked as a script translator, producer, screenwriter and correspondent for television programs and kids news in Chiapas. She is a member of the Satilfilm audiovisual collective. Her multidisciplinary training and work as a translator, interpreter, teacher and director has led her to become interested in the topic of Tzeltal and Tzotzil women's participation in public and community spaces, as well as the defense of native languages through documentary film.

She is currently filming "Me' Sacramento", her first feature film.

Statement:

A day represents a year for Elena, a Mayan Tzotzil woman from San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas, municipal trustee committed to her people. Her work as an authority invites us to recognize how the traditional system of organization of her people has limited women to having a political background and trajectory like that of men. The film not only introduces us to a distinctive form of government in a Tzotzil town, but also to the complex relationship between tradition, politics and religion with which she deals during her position, taking care that the inclusion of women is not the beginning and the end of gender parity in her hometown.