Eufrosina’s Revolution

When Mexican Eufrosina cannot exercise her office after being elected mayor only because she is a woman, she goes to battle. Once a grassroots activist, she gradually develops into a fully fledged administrator. ‘Girl power’ movie from the remote mountain area of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Eufrosina Cruz Mendoza, also known as ‘La China’, grew up in Santa María Quiegolani Mendoza, an indigenous Zapotec community in the remote and poor mountain area of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. There, modern life has hardly penetrated. Local laws, the so-called ‘uses and customs’, prescribe that women have different tasks and duties than men. When Eufrosina is elected mayor in 2007, she cannot exercise her office because this parallel legislation bans women from administrative functions. Disappointed yet combative, she decides to champion equal rights and better living conditions in the indigenous communities. She visits other isolated villages, sets up social and education projects and gradually becomes a symbol of resistance and change.  In 2010, she is the first indigenous woman to be elected as delegate and president of the Congress for the National Action Party (PAN). Her new political status leaves her with doubts, however, as to whether she should cease her activism now that she is a politician and promote change in a different way by making compromises and participating in endless meetings. Is this really what she wanted?