Ay Mariposa

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.

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.

So often, we lose sight of the real people, the real places that would be shattered by the border wall. This beautiful film makes it personal again. This film delivered me tears, rage, and most dangerous of all, hope.

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.

This poignant film is an antidote to the false narrative of the dangerous out-of-control southern border. It depicts the reality of border communities and the borderlands-the rich culture, the safe cities and close-knit communities, along with the amazing wildlife diversity in this subtropical region. But it also describes the trauma that has been the inflicted on the people and the land because of militarization and border walls.