Professor's film explores environmental challenges faced by Mexican community

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Several months ago, Teaching Professor of Anthropology Kirk French submitted his documentary, “Land and Water Revisited,” for Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy Award consideration.

In August, he was happily surprised by the news that he and his collaborators had received a nomination in the Documentary (Single Program) category for the film, which examines the environmental challenges facing communities in Mexico's Teotihuacan Valley. At the Oct. 1 ceremony in Philadelphia, it’ll compete against five other documentaries for the Emmy.

“I have to say, I’m pretty pumped about it,” said French, who wrote and directed the documentary and co-produced it with Elijah Hermitt and Neal Hutcheson.

Now available for streaming on PBS, "Land and Water Revisited” takes an in-depth look back at “Land and Water: An Ecological Study of the Teotihuacan Valley of Mexico,” the 1962 documentary by the late William T. Sanders, former Evan Pugh Professor of Archaeological Anthropology. The 28-minute film, which examines the agricultural and land-use practices in the region just prior to the urban explosion of Mexico City, continues to be used today as an educational resource for students in the Department of Anthropology.

French himself was a doctoral student at Penn State when he first saw “Land and Water.” After taking a research trip to the Teotihuacan Valley, he became fascinated with the idea of reexamining the region and the ways in which the environmental and cultural landscape had changed since Sanders filmed there.

“The first time I drove through the area, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this place is so much different than it was in 'Land and Water' — this would be great to revisit,’” said French, who grew up a fan of the engrossing historical documentaries of Ken Burns.

“The main reason I became attached to the film idea is that I’m more interested in doing things that reach the broader public in addition to the scholarly community and students,” he continued. “Nothing has a broader outreach than film — the medium is so impactful. People share it in classrooms, and it just has a different life.”

When Sanders passed away in 2008, the project took on a special resonance for French and he knew he had to pursue it.

And he succeeded, thanks in part to funding from the College of the Liberal Arts and Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE), and the assistance of collaborators Hermitt (French’s former student and a 2018 anthropology alumnus) and Hutcheson.

Besides chronicling the environmental and cultural changes that have occurred in the Teotihuacan Valley over the past six decades, “Land and Water Revisited” captures the poignant reactions of valley residents who attended public viewings of the original documentary in 2018. For most of them, it was their first time seeing the film, as well as the family members and friends featured in it.

Two of those residents, Perla Martinez and Alonso Rodriguez, will travel to University Park for a special screening of “Land and Water Revisited” on Nov. 9 at 2:30 p.m. in the Hintz Family Alumni Center. The event, sponsored by the IEE, the College of the Liberal Arts and its Sustainability Council, Penn State’s Sustainability Institute, Latin American Studies, and the Department of Anthropology, will also include a 30-minute Q&A with Martinez and Rodriguez, who served as associate producers for the film and have hosted numerous screenings in small communities throughout the Teotihuacan Valley since its premiere in January 2020.

Meanwhile, last year the documentary won Best Feature Film of the Americas at the 2021 Quetzalcoatl Indigenous International Film Festival, which recognizes filmmakers who produce works that promote and honor native, aboriginal and indigenous cultures throughout the world.

“For me, it’s very gratifying that the people there are happy with the film,” French said. “When you’re making this type of film, when you’re seeking a lot of input and opinions from people with a different worldview, a different culture, it can be a challenge. But out of that we ended up with a more honest and inclusive project.”

“And the answers the people gave in the film, they were hyper-aware that the environmental problems they’re going through are not unique, but are going on all over the world,” he added. “That’s why the end of the film is dedicated to communities around the world that are having the same issues. The fact is, the majority of the world does not have access to clean drinking water.”

Revisiting a 100-year-old documentary

Currently, French is well into his next film project — “A Century After Nanook,” a revisitation of “Nanook of the North,” the 1922 silent film considered to be the first commercially successful documentary. Made by Robert J. Flaherty, the film documented the daily struggles of an Inuk man and his family in the unforgiving Arctic landscape of Inukjuak, a small Inuit village on the east coast of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec.

The idea for the project came to French when he, Hermitt and Hutcheson were putting the final touches on “Land and Water Revisited” one night in October 2019. While throwing ideas around, French mused, “Why don’t we revisit the most famous of all documentaries, ‘Nanook of the North?’”

As it happened, the film was coming up on its 100th anniversary. Once French found out no one else was doing a similar project, he got to work, cold calling members of the Inuit community and securing a $30,000 grant from IEE.

He was set to head to Canada in the summer of 2020 but was prohibited due to COVID-19-mandated travel restrictions. Undaunted, French sent the Inuit community members cameras and encouraged them to start the project themselves.

French finally made it to Inukjuak in July 2021, then returned this past June to film the 100th anniversary celebration of “Nanook of the North’s” release. He was the only non-Inuk on the festival’s planning committee.

“It was a fantastic experience. And we showed the film on June 11, the same day that it premiered in New York City in 1922,” said French, who plans to make another trip to the community this month.

The completed documentary will show how the Inuit community have sought to maintain their culture in the face of numerous adversities, from the devastating effects of climate change on their icy landscape to serious drug and alcohol issues among the population to the lingering pain caused by decades of systematic abuse by the Canadian government.

“For them, it’s been one nightmarish trauma after another. It’s created real cultural change that has caused deep emotional wounds,” French said. “And while we want to show the environmental issues and the suffering of the community, we also want to show the resiliency of this community. It’s a story of survival and adaptation in the Arctic, the hardest place in the world to live.”

Because the original “Nanook of the North” has been criticized for Flaherty's portrayal of the Inuit people, French said he has taken pains to thoughtfully consider how he’s depicting the community in his own work. But he also discovered that the residents of Inukjuak are proud of the original film for capturing their people at that moment in time.

“They view the film as a shining moment of beauty,” French said. “So, it’s great that they’re doing the filming for our project, which makes it fully collaborative, even more so than ‘Land and Water Revisited.’ It’s been very rewarding so far. And it’s going to be much more rewarding when it’s done.”