What a beautiful film this is! The cinematography is breathtaking! The narrator's description of the butterfly is both informative and magical. How the stories of the two women protagonists are intertwined with the life cycle of the butterfly is genius. For those of us living on the US-Mexico border this is a significant representation of our homeland and the struggle we face. I hope it is widely viewed.
Plot summary
Ay Mariposa is a feature length documentary that tells a story of three characters in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas whose lives are upended by plans to build a US-Mexico border wall. As the director of the National Butterfly Center, Marianna Trevino Wright has become a leader of wall resistance in the Valley, a position that has resulted in violent threats from pro-wall factions and an emotional odyssey as she tries to navigate the ever- shifting sands of border policy. Wright has received national attention as an outspoken opponent of border wall, and protector of conservation lands in the Rio Grande Valley, including the National Butterfly Center. The film follows her fight for the future of the region. Ay Mariposa also tells the story of Zulema Hernandez, a migrant worker who emigrated from Mexico in the 1970s and joined in the work of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Union to protect the rights of farm laborers. The film looks at Hernandez's journey from childhood, through motherhood and into her present life as a great grandmother and outspoken opponent of the border wall. Finally the film tells the story of the butterfly, la mariposa, which fights its own daily battle for survival in a landscape where more than 95 percent of its habitat is long gone and much of what remains lies directly in the path of the border wall. Ay Mariposa weaves these three stories together, touching on the themes of family, resistance, and conservation of the natural world.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 525.34 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
A heartbreaking yet hopeful look at three characters impacted by current border policy
Reviewed by
Beautiful film about the struggle to stop the border wall
This is an amazing film about ongoing efforts to stop border walls from ripping through border communities and border ecosystems. The filmmakers have an intimate knowledge of the borderlands and the people who live there, and that comes through. Anyone who wants to really understand what will be lost if Trump gets his wall, and how those of us who live along the border are fighting to protect our home, should watch this movie. I live here and I have never seen a truer representation of my home.
Reviewed by
This movie will change the way you think about the border
Ay Mariposa is a hard-hitting expose of the totally bogus approach the U.S. government has taken to its border with Mexico. If you thought the wall was a good idea, you won't anymore after watching this film. You hear straight from the mouths of the women harmed most by walls built willy-nilly across beautiful landscapes and through impoverished communities. You also come to understand the life of the butterfly, how natural its migration is, and how it's just as natural for people to migrate. Our border policies are shown to be a political farce that picks on the little guy for the benefit of huge companies and greedy politicians. Ay Mariposa shows all this without being preachy or overbearing. Instead, it is utterly stunning nature photography with up-close-and-personal interviews with people who are fighting tooth-and-nail to keep it out of their backyards and off their favorite nature preserves.