“It’s been a lifetime of thoughts,” observes one of the participants in this formally adventurous essay film. Set in rural Guatemala, the work focuses on Mari, a former midwife grappling with the weight of her vocation, and Maricielo, whose queer identity challenges the community’s rigid gender roles. Utilizing a poetic visual language of interiors, often framed by thresholds, doors, and windows, filmmaker Julia Mendoza Friedman seeks to map these lifetimes of thoughts, creating an immersive, intentionally opaque bond between subject and observer. Through atmospheric handheld cinematography and an elliptical structure, Failure Is a River of Mine captures moments of rare intimacy as it explores the friction between traditional cultural norms and practices and the quest for individual liberation. PB

Q&A following screening