Ay Mariposa (2019)

Ay Mariposa is a feature length documentary that tells a story of three characters in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas whose lives are upended by plans to build a US-Mexico border wall.

As the director of the National Butterfly Center, Marianna Trevino Wright has become a leader of wall resistance in the Valley, a position that has resulted in violent threats from pro-wall factions and an emotional odyssey as she tries to navigate the ever- shifting sands of border policy. Wright has received national attention as an outspoken opponent of border wall, and protector of conservation lands in the Rio Grande Valley, including the National Butterfly Center. The film follows her fight for the future of the region. Ay Mariposa also tells the story of Zulema Hernandez, a migrant worker who emigrated from Mexico in the 1970s and joined in the work of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Union to protect the rights of farm laborers. The film looks at Hernandez's journey from childhood, through motherhood and into her present life as a great grandmother and outspoken opponent of the border wall. Finally the film tells the story of the butterfly, la mariposa, which fights its own daily battle for survival in a landscape where more than 95 percent of its habitat is long gone and much of what remains lies directly in the path of the border wall. Ay Mariposa weaves these three stories together, touching on the themes of family, resistance, and conservation of the natural world.