From Mad in Mexico: Rita, the subject of the documentary film “The Woman of the Stars and Mountains”, is a Rarámuri woman who left her community in the Sierra Tarahumara in Mexico without an apparent destination. She ended up in a town in Manter, Kansas, where she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and medicated against her will. For 12 years Rita remained hospitalized, her beliefs and customs were looked through the perspective of psychiatry. This documentary reconstructs Rita’s story, before, during and after her hospitalization, showing us the difficulties that arise when differences are criminalized and pathologized, as well as the complexities of returning to the community after a life of exclusion.
In this article, Luis Arroyo had the opportunity to talk with Santiago Esteinou, director of the documentary, who shares about his experience in the making of the film.
Link to the original article in Spanish here. Please refer to this page for browser translation instructions.
