The revolution was televised — and it started with ski masks and poetry.
On January 1, 1994, thousands of indigenous people occupied seven towns in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas under the slogan "Ya Basta!" (Enough!) occupied seven towns in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. For two weeks, the Zapatistas - who named themselves after the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata - fought armed against the government, which had only contempt or violence for them.
Direction
Kerkeling lets Zapatistas speak, never co-opts their voice.
Production
Raw 2007 footage feels somehow more urgent now.
Director
Luz Kerkeling
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Zapatistas invented modern 'netwar' — using global media while living without electricity. The 1994 uprising was timed to coincide with NAFTA's launch, making indigenous poverty impossible to ignore.
Subcomandante Marcos was actually a non-indigenous urban intellectual who became the movement's masked spokesperson — a deliberate contradiction the Zapatistas never tried to resolve.
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