Natalie D.C.
What do spirituality, mycology, and death all have in common? Mexican filmmaker Otilia Portillo Padua seeks to answer this question and many more in her feature documentary debut Daughters of the Forest.
Haunting and enlightening, the film follows two Indigenous women—mycologist Eliseete Ramírez Carbajal (Lis) and biologist Julieta Serafina Amaya Pérez (Juli)—who reconcile their pasts, presents, and futures as they connect their academic pursuits to the diverse species of mushrooms that bring life to their dual communities nestled deep in the Mexican forest. Produced by Oscura Producciones and Sandbox Films, the film is set for a world premiere at the 2026 Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival as well as a North American premiere at SXSW on March 13.
Daughters of the Forest opens like no other documentary—mystical stills of various mushrooms gorgeously shot by Mexican cinematographer Martín Boege and hypnotically stitched together by Costa Rican editor Lorenzo Mora Salazar as the spirit-like fungi speak directly to the viewer: “We come from a distant point in spacetime.” Indeed, these ghostly mycelium act as periodic transitions between the space and time that separate Lis and Juli’s journeys, ensuring the viewer never forgets that they, too, are characters in this story.
The film first introduces Lis, a Tlahuica-Pjiekakjoo mycologist who studies wild edible mushrooms native to her home in the State of Mexico alongside her grandmother Doña Julia, her mother Cristina, and her father Sergio, who all grew up foraging for fungi hidden in the forests now threatened by illegal logging that is currently ravaging their community. Throughout the film, Lis catalogues the Spanish names of several edible and non-edible mushrooms that are staples in her family’s home, stating at one point, “Behind every mushroom is a story.”
After another trippy intermission from the mushrooms themselves, Daughters of the Forest introduces its second subject Juli, a Zapotec biologist from the State of Oaxaca who became inspired to study mushrooms after her father consumed one for medicinal purposes and sadly passed away. Throughout the film, Juli, alongside her mentor Dr. Olivia as well as her mother Zenaida, study the medicinal and spiritual nature of certain mushrooms as the young woman grapples with her grief, pursuit of a masters degree, and uncertain future.
As Daughters of the Forest weaves itself between Lis and Juli’s disparate, yet interconnected stories of community, mourning, and self-acceptance, the film touches on a variety of themes, from environmental activism to hardships within academia to the death of languages and culture, revealing a key strength and weakness of this one-of-a-kind documentary.
The film’s strength lies in its passion for genre-bending storytelling. In her director’s statement, Portillo Padua underscores the importance of science-fiction stories in order to imagine “other possible futures” besides the “apocalyptic” one we seem to be hurdling towards on a daily basis. She highlights Afrofuturist writers like Ursula K. Le Guin whose 1986 essay “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” reinvents the linear, hero-driven narratives often found in mainstream sci-fi. Indeed, Daughters of the Forest excels at its most fantastical and least linear, exploring two Indigenous women’s multifaceted lives as daughters, granddaughters, and scientists.
While the film is technically sound, it struggles under the weight of its many themes. There’s only so much one can cover in just over 90 minutes and Portillo Padua attempts to unpack it all, from generational trauma to environmental collapse to fungi as a metaphor for life and death. Needless to say, these are important themes that deserve to be explored, but, by its end, Daughters of the Forest unfortunately finds itself caught in the weeds (no pun intended) of the many subject matters it attempts to juggle, temporarily losing sight of its three protagonists: Lis, Juli, and the mushrooms that so define their storied lives.
Indeed, Portillo Padua’s film is filled to the brim with fascinating fungi facts and empowering vignettes from Lis and Juli’s lives that will leave most viewers wanting more. While the film is far from perfect, Daughters of the Forest is an unforgettable, albeit unfocused, documentary that acts as a love letter to the science fiction genre, cultural traditions passed down through generations, and, of course, mushrooms.
