The Echo

A small village on the high plateau of Mexico. A few houses, flocks of sheep, a school and winter. The film watches the children living there: they mind the animals, raise their younger siblings, care for a sick grandmother, work in the fields and go to school in between. There is no narrator and no interview. The camera follows one year. Tatiana Huezo directs. The documentary was shown at the Berlin film festival and took awards there for directing and as a documentary. What it shows is work and childhood running at the same time. The children play and carry serious responsibility on the same day, and the narrative neither exalts nor pities that. The girls are at the centre; one wants to study veterinary medicine while her family expects her to marry, and the film sets the two side by side. The sound design is its strongest side: wind, animals, the children whispering and the silence inside the house. The photography is close and distant at once; the camera is inside and intervenes nowhere. Tatiana Huezo had made documentaries about violence and disappearance; there is no violence here and the attention is turned to the ordinary. Who it is for: viewers who like observational documentary and slow cinema. Who it is not for: nothing happens, the pace is very slow, and the narrative gives no information.