Daughters of the Forest Hijas del bosque Spectrum
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About
Canadian Premiere
In Daughters of the Forest, two Indigenous mycologists, Eliseete and Julieta, work to preserve generations of traditional knowledge about fungi and the forests that sustain them. In Mexico State’s Lagunas de Zempoala National Park, Zapotec student Eliseete learns from her abuela and a circle of women who have long foraged for mushrooms. In Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, biologist Julieta considers furthering her studies to help safeguard her region’s knowledge of flora, but doing so would distance her from her young son for two years. Around them, deforestation and illegal logging threaten both the forests and the knowledge they contain.
Otilia Portillo’s spellbinding and immersive sci-fi documentary takes an unexpected path into the entanglements between humans and mushrooms, the visible and invisible, and ancestral knowledge and modern science. Portillo gives fungi an otherworldly visual language, making their strange forms and hidden networks feel like portals into another world. Throughout, the film’s sense of wonder remains grounded in the women’s deep connection to the forest, where scientific research and ancestral knowledge coexist.
Content Considerations: Use of mushrooms for traditional Indigenous methods, presentation of psychedelic experiences
Audience Award: Visions, CPH:DOX 2026
In Daughters of the Forest, two Indigenous mycologists, Eliseete and Julieta, work to preserve generations of traditional knowledge about fungi and the forests that sustain them. In Mexico State’s Lagunas de Zempoala National Park, Zapotec student Eliseete learns from her abuela and a circle of women who have long foraged for mushrooms. In Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, biologist Julieta considers furthering her studies to help safeguard her region’s knowledge of flora, but doing so would distance her from her young son for two years. Around them, deforestation and illegal logging threaten both the forests and the knowledge they contain.
Otilia Portillo’s spellbinding and immersive sci-fi documentary takes an unexpected path into the entanglements between humans and mushrooms, the visible and invisible, and ancestral knowledge and modern science. Portillo gives fungi an otherworldly visual language, making their strange forms and hidden networks feel like portals into another world. Throughout, the film’s sense of wonder remains grounded in the women’s deep connection to the forest, where scientific research and ancestral knowledge coexist.
Content Considerations: Use of mushrooms for traditional Indigenous methods, presentation of psychedelic experiences
Audience Award: Visions, CPH:DOX 2026
