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August 10, 2025
by Eme Eidson
I first arrived in San Miguel de Allende in 2001 where I raised my daughter and made documentary films in Mexico City, Chiapas and Oaxaca. We moved back to New York in 2016 and I started working at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn teaching Literature, Documentary Image and more recently I created a new course on Eastern European Cinema with a focus on experimental sound design theory.
In 2019, just before the pandemic, I started making experimental films in Greece. My short film, Aura, won best experimental film at the French Riviera film festival at Cannes 2024. This encouraged me to keep going particularly as I felt the application of my literary and documentary background was useful in this genre, and I could say more in an experimental narrative than other forms of cinema.
The idea for the film project, Nahui Olin: Cosmic Vision germinated in Mexico and grew as I was researching and then later began teaching a literature class. My female students went wild over an essay about Nahui Olin (Carmen Mondragón) in a book by Elena Poniatowska entitled "The Women of Mexico's Cultural Renaissance. And I began thinking that this story about a woman, who broke the rules of patriarchy in the 1920s and kept fighting until the end of her life, writing poetry, painting and teaching at Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
I started researching and found a way to tell the story with her letters and re-enactments of scenes from her life, which we filmed in Mexico City, Vera Cruz, Querétaro and San Miguel. I could not have done it without the wonderful actors, editor, camera assistants and filmmaker friends who helped me brainstorm, not to mention an amazing graphic artist, Sophie Zavala, who made the poster.
As a foreigner, I recognize all the love and support that has made it possible for me to make films within the cultural milieu of Mexico; a country that has long been a haven for artists, filmmakers, and writers, who have found fertile ground for their creative productions.
What is it that makes those ideas bubble up so readily in the mind here in Mexico, especially in San Miguel? Perhaps it is the happiness of the people from day to day; or the way time is suspended while you move by an inner clock that connects to the land, the food, the people.
Whatever it is, I am deeply grateful to be here in San Miguel de Allende along with my dogs and the golondrinos in the garden of my house by the train station, thinking of new ways to make films in collaboration with the exceptionally talented actors and filmmakers of Mexico.
Working with such an extraordinary pool of creatives, who are talented, professional and possess a sweetness that speaks to your humanity, makes it hard to consider going anywhere else. Everything ferments and grows naturally here.
Mexico is not "too" surreal, as Salvador Dali once implied. Rather it is perfectly surreal, ideal for the stream of creatives who continue flowing through this great land, contributing to the culture with new artistic ideas and creations.
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www.pratt.edu/people/melissa-eidson/
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