By Katy Montoya

Many in this year’s selection of short films in the Umbrales section of FICUNAM 13 demonstrate different ways of conceiving the magnitude of destruction that defines our present moment. As seen in these pieces, our destruction— ours because we have no choice but to embrace it as part of us and our doing— insidiously infiltrates the most hidden nooks of our psyches as it seeps into the deepest reserves of our groundwater. But here, our responses to destruction can also find fresh roots. As Tsing asks, “How else can we account for the fact that anything is alive in the mess we have made?”