This spring, the Santa Monica Museum of Art celebrates the gateway to Baja California, the city of Tijuana, with a unique series of exhibitions, speakers, and film screenings. Last Friday, the museum hosted a special screening of “Maquilapolis: City of Factories,” which explores Tijuana’s factory culture from the inside out.   

Over a six-week period, the producers of “Maquilapolis” conducted a video workshop in Tijuana, training a group of women factory workers to use digital video cameras. The workshop covered filming techniques, sound recording, and documentary storytelling. Participants made intimate video diaries and worked in teams to document their lives. Their stories were then artfully woven into a provocative and beautiful film.

The film vividly depicts the struggle to survive and thrive in Mexico’s NAFTA era. In the transnational factories in Tijuana today, you will find thousands of women workers - they make up 80% of the labor force. You will also find hundreds of revolutionaries. Promotoras, as they are called, are super-activists; their causes include labor rights, gender equality, environmental protection, and universal healthcare. In “Maquilapolis,” the promotoras go behind the camera to take on companies like Sony and Panasonic, as well as the tangled red tape of the Mexican government and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

“Maquilapolis” is a collaboration between filmmaker Vicky Funari, artist Sergio De La Torre, and Tijuana women’s organization Grupo Factor X, with participation from the human rights organization Global Exchange, and the environmental activism organization The Environmental Health Coalition.

The SMMoA screening was followed by a panel with the filmmakers and featured promotora, Lupita Castañeda. According to Castañeda, digital cameras have become a weapon in the promotora arsenal: “We know now – if we have a problem, we take the camera.”

To see the film “Maquilapolis” and to learn more about Tijuana’s promotoras, visit http://www.maquilapolis.com. You can explore SMMoA’s Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana by visiting http://www.smmoa.org.