Oaxaca Solidarity Event! Film and Director: Blossoms of Fire!

FILM SYNOPSIS:
Celebrates the extraordinary lives of the Isthmus
Zapotecs of southern Oaxaca, Mexico. The Isthmus
Zapotecs, whose culture is rooted in a strong work
ethic and fierce independent streak, have resulted not
only in powerful women, but also in the region's
progressive politics and an unusual tolerance of
alternative gender roles. Artists like Miguel
Covarrubias and Frida Kahlo have often celebrated and
rendered tribute in their paintings to the legendary
beauty of the woman of Juchitan. These brightly
colored, opinionated women run their own businesses,
embroider their signature of fiery flowers on clothing
and comment with angry humor on articles in the
foreign press that flippantly an inaccurately depict
them as a promiscuous matriarchy. Their lives may be
hard, and maintaining Zapotec culture and language may
be an ongoing battle, but it is plain that not one of
these individuals--man, woman, young, old, gay or
straight--would willingly change places with anyone in
the first world.