Mushrooms in the mountains of Oaxaca: 5 Questions for Documentary Filmmakers Mónica Álvarez and Tatiana García
Álvarez and Garcia discuss their documentary film about psilocybin traditions in Mexico.
The rainy season is underway in southern Mexico, which means the mushrooms are pushing up through the soil. Filmmakers and producers Mónica Álvarez Franco and Tatiana García recently returned from their first film shoot in the mountain communities outside Oaxaca where they are working on a feature-length documentary film called “Voices from the Earth.” Their project received a 2025 Mycoskie - UC Berkeley Psychedelic Documentary Fellowship.
Álvarez has written and directed several short films showcased at festivals across Mexico. Her debut documentary feature, “Bosque de Niebla,” premiered in 2017 at FICUNAM, the International Film Festival of UNAM, where it received an Honorable Mention. The film later won awards and made the rounds at film festivals including South by Southwest, Margaret Mead New York Film Festival and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. The film is currently available on Amazon Prime in over 20 countries.
García is a producer on “Voices from the Earth.” She’s worked at the Tribeca Film Festival and Cinema Tropical and produced award-winning documentaries, features, and digital content for companies including Netflix and NBC. The Microdose spoke with Álvarez and García about their psilocybin film.
You recently went on a shoot in the mountains of Oaxaca. Tell me about your film and about your experience there. What was it like?
Tatiana García: “Voices from the Earth” is a documentary about psychedelic tourism and gentrification in this little town in the Oaxacan Sierra. This project explores the tradition of the psilocybin mushrooms that are grown there, the Zapotecorum mexicano, or derrumbes, which means landfall in Spanish, because they grow on landslides in the mountains. Our approach to the film is having an intimate lens on one family that survives gentrification and psychedelic tourism, and, of course, how mushrooms have been a main compass of their lives and their visions.
We met with our main participant Ariadna Pinacho and her family. Ariadna studied gastronomy and came back home because after working in hotels, she was like, ‘What am I doing when I have an amazing thing to go back to? When I can grow my community through my experience and raise up what mushrooms mean to us as a Zapotec community?’ Ariadna’s little cabins are where many scientists stay when they come and study mushrooms in these mountains, which is beautiful. We really got a sense of them becoming stronger as a community, defending their land, defending the mushrooms. They are also very experienced in having psilocybin trips. They’re very proud of being part of a mushroom community. ‘We are from the mushrooms’ is a phrase that Ariadna always says. We had a wonderful walk with a lady who showed us all the different mushrooms they consume there, what they call the “holy children.” For them this is a natural part of their life and not ‘Let’s just get high and have fun.’ It’s part of who they are from when they are born all the way to when they die.
Why did you choose to focus on the Zapotec community specifically?
Tatiana García: The Zapotec community has lived alongside mushrooms all their lives throughout generations and have survived many, many, things including gentrification and other struggles. I had knowledge about their community because I was close to a family there. So I think it was kind of like going back to a place that was home for me in a way.
It just made sense to go to a place like that, especially because the landslide mushrooms, Zapotecorum mexicano, is a very peculiar kind of mushroom that doesn’t grow any other place in the world. It only grows there. So that also made the experience very interesting, having one type of mushroom that is very protected by the community. San Jose del Pacifico is the highest point in the mountains of Oaxaca and it’s so high that you can actually see the Pacific Ocean from there. It’s a beautiful place. One minute it’s cloudy, it’s foggy, you cannot see 2-feet in front of you. Then it starts to rain, and two seconds later it’s bright and blue skies. I think all those elements create the perfect environment for these mushrooms to survive.
Why are you interested in telling this story?
Mónica Álvarez Franco: I think this project is trying to understand how things like tourism cause changes socially and anthropologically. And in this case, it was the mushrooms that brought the tourists. The use of the mushroom for this community is not just a recreational act, it’s an act of healing. They consume mushrooms at least once a year, or when they’re having personal, psychological conflicts. So these mushrooms symbolize one thing for the people, but at the same time you see graffiti in the streets about mushrooms in languages that are foreign to the community itself. That culture shock is really interesting.
Monica, how do you see this new project in conversation with your previous work “Bosque de Niebla”?
Mónica Álvarez Franco: I like to think that each project has its own feeling, its own soul. I see similarities in “Bosque de Niebla” and this project because of the communities. Even though they seem to be very sociable, they work from the inside. It’s difficult to break those barriers of intimacy. I think the key in both projects is the observation and being very close to those intimate spaces, and being able to capture the beauty of that authenticity of the population, of how it is organized, of how it understands itself. That part is mystical.
Why do you feel that it’s important for this story to be told to an international audience?
Mónica Álvarez Franco: I think that, like “Bosque de Niebla,” these are stories that kind of solve questions of our human experience, or how we relate with other humans. Through that lens, we can identify each other and have this hunger to seek who we are, and it can relate to any audience on the planet.
Tatiana García: Filmmaking is not separate from the scientific world. It’s a beautiful bridge between art and science in that sense. By relaying information through art and looking humanly to, in this case at mushrooms, we can speak about the scientific world through human experience.
Mónica Álvarez Franco: I think that also happened with “Bosque de Niebla.” If it had been a documentary that talked about permaculture or climate change, a very specific audience would have arrived. But to talk about it in this human, narrative way, that opens up that audience.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Are you a documentary maker with a project that in some way relates to psychedelics? Applications for the next round of Mycoskie - UC Berkeley Psychedelic Documentary Fellowships are due October 30, 2025.
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