Daughters of the Forest: Mycelium Chronicles
Otilia Portillo / Mexico / 2026 / World Premiere / 87 min
Science fiction meets ancient practices deep in Mexico's mushroom-rich forests, where two female mycologists from the country's indigenous peoples seek to unite past and present across life forms.
Eliseete and Julieta are trained mycologists – experts in fungi – and both find themselves with one foot in modern science and the other in the mindsets of their families and predecessors, which are deeply rooted in the indigenous peoples’ ways of viewing nature and themselves. We are in Mexico, where the deep forests are rich in fungi, and where a female community of mushroom gatherers invites us to reconsider our own relationship with ecosystems and other life forms.
Otilia Portillo’s deeply atmospheric and original film is a story of the intertwining of humans and mushrooms, the visible and the invisible, ancient knowledge and modern methods. With elements of both sci-fi and sensual immersion in the wonders of nature, it is an experience of the rarest and finest kind. A story of ecological coexistence, but also a report from a world threatened by deforestation and human arrogance – everything that Eliseete and Julieta’s work is an alternative to.