Deep in Mexico’s mushroom-rich forests, two women from indigenous communities have become mycologists. This immersive sci-fi documentary follows their unusual, fungi-driven paths as they seek to reconcile the past and present while reimagining the future for themselves and the changing world they inhabit.

Daughters of the Forest is an imaginative, futuristic, sci-fi-infused look at the deep interdependence between humans and mushrooms in Mexico’s jungles. Mexican filmmaker Otilia Portillo Padua centers her film on two Indigenous women who work as mycologists and foragers, tracing how ancestral knowledge, Indigenous worldviews, and contemporary science converge through the branching threads of mycelium. Their lives as scientists anchor a larger meditation on inherited tradition and family legacy, as the cultural bond they share with mushrooms comes under threat from illegal logging, deforestation, and climate change.

Rather than lean on familiar apocalyptic climate narratives, Padua sets out to imagine what the world might reveal if we paid closer attention to fungi – a world governed by cycles of adaptation, resilience, and renewal. Daughters of the Forest builds a wholly original, mystical visual language around mushrooms, while also capturing the everyday rhythms of foraging on the jungle floor, rural life, and the distinct discipline of mycological research.

Planet in Focus is proud to present the Ontario premiere of Daughters of the Forest, which premiered at CPH:DOX where it won an Audience Award. It also won the Visions Audience Award at SXSW. -PLANET IN FOCUS