CENOTE

TS’ONOT

By Kaori ODA

ARTICLE FILMS - as SALES All rights, World

Documentary - Completed 2019

Cenotes—sources of water that in ancient Mayan civilization were said to connect the real world and the afterlife. The past and present of the people living in and around them intersect and distant memories echo throughout immersive scenes of light and darkness.

Festivals
& Awards

Ymagata Documentary Film Festival 2019
Rotterdam IFF 2020
Bright Future
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • Documentary, Experimental, Second film
    • Countries
    • JAPAN, MEXICO
    • Languages
    • SPANISH
    • Budget
    • 0.6 - 1 M$
    • Duration
    • 82 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Kaori ODA
    • Synopsis
    • Sunlight comes down into the water from the top of the cave in the water.

      In the north of Yucatan, fountains called cenote are made with groundwater in the underground cavity where the only water sources in the land where there is no river and lake.

      Some cenotes were used as ritual space and many people were thrown into the water as sacrifices. It was also to receive a message from the Rain God ‘Chaac’ that they believed the God lived in the bottom of cenote.
      In the Popol Vuh myth that is the genesis of ancient Maya, when the twins go down to hades ’Xibalba’, they pass through the big water. Mayan believed cenotes were the way that connected the present life and hereafter.
      The underground world that has wandering lost souls and its own history carrying the heavy responsibility of its land. When the sacrificed souls would wake up and invite the livings into the water, memories of the land would come back.