A Conversation with Tsotsil Filmmaker María Sojob

A Conversation with Tsotsil Filmmaker María Sojob November 2023 Translation from the Spanish Click for larger view View full resolution Still from Tote/Abuelo/Courtesy of María Sojob María Sojob, a Tsotsil filmmaker, visited the University of Oklahoma in November 2023 as part of the Mayan Film Festival organized by Carol Rose Little, sponsored in part by WLT. Sojob screened her film Tote/Abuelo (2019), a documentary in the Tsotsil language about her relationship with her grandfather, or tote in Tsotsil (pronounced toe-tay). Tsotsil is a Mayan language spoken by half a million people in southern Mexico and diaspora communities across the US. This interview was conducted on Sojob's last day in Oklahoma. Carol Rose Little: Thank you for coming to the University of Oklahoma and showing your documentary Tote/Abuelo. I wanted to begin by asking you what motivated you to make this documentary? María Sojob: Thank you and the University of Oklahoma for having me. The first motivation was to leave a record, both visual and auditory, of my grandfather's life and, above all, his work making traditional hats. I made it when I did because he was sick and going blind; time was passing very quickly. As he began to age, he was no longer the grandfather who used to scare me as a child. Instead, he inspired a tenderness in me, a need to get to know him and establish a relationship with him. That need led me to convince him to let me record our interactions. Through visiting him, many questions arose: why didn't I have a close relationship with my grandfather, with my home territory, with my life in that community? The only link I had was the Tsotsil language, which, despite years of oppression, continues to live on. Between different territories, Maya and non-Maya, and between different languages, Spanish and Tsotsil, the story and [End Page 5] the film are woven together. I seek to find answers about affection, emotions, and love. The fabric of the hat he is making in the documentary becomes the metaphor that connects these worlds and, little by little, weaves together the answers. Little: How was it to screen Tote/Abuelo in Oklahoma? Sojob: Screening it in Oklahoma made me remember what motivated me to make the film. The themes of the film are family relationships, memory, and love; these themes are things that many people experience. We all love, we all have issues and difficulties with family members. It's not only about it being an Indigenous film by an Indigenous person in an Indigenous place; it's about the commonalities we all share that traverse our differences. To be able to connect is important. A lot of films speak to collective struggles, but this documentary is more about the personal, and even if one is not from that culture, one can still see oneself in it. I felt that viewers in Oklahoma really connected with the people in the documentary. Click for larger view View full resolution Still from Tote/Abuelo/Courtesy of María Sojob Little: One of the things that struck me when watching the documentary were the long, extended shots of the landscapes, something that is not typical of mainstream documentaries. Could you speak a little more about these shots? Sojob: It was actually instinctual; I did not realize I was doing it until it was pointed out to me. The extended shots reflect the rhythms of the community and how time passes there so that viewers could experience it, too. I include a lot of shots of the surrounding nature of the community to convey the connections the community has with the earth, its animals, and people. Time works in different ways in Tsotsil communities. Little: The documentary was almost entirely in Tsotsil. Could you tell us more about the role of the language in the film and in your community? Sojob: We use Tsotsil on a daily basis where I'm from. Even Tsotsil people who have moved away from their communities continue to use the language. For the documentary there was no other option than to do it in Tsotsil. It...