A BIGGER PLACE

Synopsis:

Chiapas, southeastern Mexico. When the people of Tila and neighboring villages run the town hall and police out of their territory, they face the challenge of exercising self-governance. "A Bigger Place" explores the day-to-day construction of autonomy, revealing a broad interweaving of people, generations, spirits and landscapes, as well as previously unseen images. It plunges us into the heart of a collective process, where self-governance becomes a responsibility towards oneself and others. A Zapatista-inspired adventure in Ch'ol Mayan territory.

Watch the trailer

Nicolas Défossé

Short Bio

Full Bio

Filmmaker, editor and producer. After the completion of a master's degree in Philosophy from the Paris1-Sorbonne University, followed by Film Studies, he worked as an editor in Paris. In the 2000s, he devoted himself to providing audiovisual training in Native communities in southeastern Mexico and made several short films in the northwest of the country, as well as the feature doc "¡Viva México!". In Chiapas, he subsequently co-founded the production house Terra Nostra Films (2009) and the Documentary Film School of San Cristóbal de Las Casas (2016), whose films have received more than 90 awards in the last 5 years. He’s co-editor and one of the authors of the book “Cine político en México (1968-2017)” (Peter Lang, 2019), and one of the authors of "Film X Autochthonous Struggles Today" (Sternberg Press, 2024). "A Bigger Place" is his second feature doc as a director.