[ETHEREAL MUSIC BEGINS]
Letters spelling “Sandbox” appear all over a black screen before disappearing, then the logo for Sandbox Films appears on screen.
The logo for Obscura appears on a black screen.
Specks of light appear on a misty, opaque surface and move forward.
[BIRDS CHIRP]
The opacity subsides and the specks of light float through a verdant green jungle.
Specks of light travel across a dark brown background which is lighter in the center.
SPEAKER #1 (in subtitled Tlahuica): Here, in the dark stillness...
More specks of light travel in a stream, like a spiral galaxy.
The camera pans through the forest at a low level, passing trees and mushrooms.
SPEAKER #1 (in subtitled Tlahuica): We come together to weave webs that connect entire forests.
In the forest, an elderly person in a pink dress, materializes and walks using a walker.
A wrinkled hand reaches down onto the floor to pull out a mushroom.
SPEAKER #1 (in subtitled Tlahuica): Transforming death into life.
The elderly person in the pink dress picks up a large mushroom and holds it out, viewed from below.
SPEAKER #2 (in subtitled Tlahuica): Charcoal burner mushroom.
[THUNDER]
Lightning strikes in a dark, cloudy sky.
A person looks into a microscope, their face illuminated.
Microscopic tendrils.
Microscopic view of an upside down Y-shape surrounded by tendrils.
SPEAKER #3 (in subtitled Spanish): Nothing can be recovered if you have no knowledge of it.
Microscopic view of a long column with thin, spiderweb-like tendrils emerging from it.
SPEAKER #3 (in subtitled Spanish): Nobody can love what they don’t know.
Close-up on a branch-like protrusion covered in a fuzzy white material, almost like snow.
Abstracted view of a dark mass of color intruding on aquamarine.
Close-up on a purple surface from which thin rod shapes are protruding.
A mass of bulbous shapes glow purple against dark surroundings.
An arthropod glows a bright, light blue against a dark purple background, as the light fades and gets brighter again.
Abstracted view of tall, thin, column shapes strewn on a barren landscape which is a light tan color and then begins to glow orange.
Cut to black.
[MUSIC STOPS BRIEFLY, THEN SHIFTS FROM ETHEREAL AND DRAMATIC TO BUBBLY AND WHIMSICAL]
A person wearing a colorful outfit lies on their back in the forest, surrounded by plants. The scene fades into an opaque white light and a stream of bright light obscures the person.
SPEAKER #4 (in subtitled Spanish): How can a mushroom speak?
Three mushrooms, one massive white one and two smaller mushrooms with tops that are red with white spots, in a forest.
A person stands in the forest, holding a mushroom to their nose and breathing deeply. The light beams through the trees in the background.
Blurry, bright spots flicker against a dark background. The scene focuses and the bright spots become mushrooms.
SPEAKER #1 (in subtitled Tlahuica): All that lives and all that dies weaves us together.
A forest floor dotted with white mushrooms.
This scene fades into an aerial view of the green forest trees.
This fades again into an abstract, speckled green surface.
The green fades into a textured white surface. The text “Daughters of the Forest” appears on screen in a dark green color. Then the text fades into white.
[MUSIC ENDS]
Cut to black.
Sunday, May 3
2 pm | LeFrak Theater
New York Premiere
Director in Attendance: Otilia Portillo Padua
2026 | 94 min | Mexico
Winner of the Visions Audience Award at SXSW, this alluring, immersive journey into the forests of Mexico blends modern science with ancestral knowledge to evoke a world beyond human perception. Following two Indigenous mycologists charting new possibilities for ecological coexistence through mushrooms, the film is a clarion call for integrating science and culture. As one scientist observes: “Nothing can be rescued if you have no knowledge of it; you can’t love what you don’t know.”
This film is co-presented by the New York Mycological Society.
Check out the full Margaret Mead Film Festival schedule or get a ticket to see Daughters of the Forest.