What Happened to the Bees?”, the first feature film shot in Yucatan, was released in late 2019 and participated in more than 20 festivals around the world. It is a powerful documentary that highlights the dangers that glyphosate fumigation and monocultures pose to ancestral survival models based on respect and coexistence with nature.
“In 2012, thousands of bees died every day in the Hopelchén region, and these bee deaths coincided with the introduction of the Monsanto transnational company’s agrarian approach. The indiscriminate use of pesticides and herbicides led to a tragedy for Mayan communities that not only affected their lands, but also reduced food production for the entire country,” said the directors of the documentary.
COVID has drawn attention to all kinds of environmental disasters around the world, including the particularly devastating impact on unprotected communities, and a documentary like What Happened to the Bees? underscores the importance of paying attention to the world around us. The environmental crisis is not long-lasting; it is already being felt around the world as a result of global warming and government policies that favor monocultures while actively undermining the continuity of autonomous community networks that do not depend on the principle of profit and accumulation. In their films, Otero and Canul reveal the deadly effects of agrochemicals that are still legal and widely used in countries like Mexico, the United States, and Argentina, and tell the powerful story of how indigenous Mayan communities took it upon themselves to confront Mexican authorities and the transnational corporation Monsanto in a fight for survival.