The Beyond

Intrigued by a story she heard, a filmmaker goes to a remote fishing village in Quintana Roo to film it. The adventure that ensues is an amusing reflection on filmmaking itself, as well as the evanescent nature of searching and the real dangers of making documentaries. A provocative mix of improvisational fiction and documentary scenes, this film provides a new take on traditional story telling. The Beyond is filmed in the beaches of far away Quintana Roo in Mexico, where narcotrafiking is starting to make inroads into a small town, in a Caribbean paradise.

FILM TITLE (Spanish): Al más allá
FILM TITLE (Original): Al Mas Alla
FILM TITLE (English): The Beyond
DIRECTOR: Lourdes Portillo
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Mexico/US
YEAR OF COMPLETION: 2008
RUNNING TIME: 42 minutes
FORMAT/LENGTH/COLOR/BW: Digibeta/42 minutes
LANGUAGE: English/Spanish Subtitles: English
Director: Lourdes Portillo
Producer: Lourdes Portillo
Screenwriter: Lourdes Portillo and Karim Scarlata
Cinematography: Kyle Kibbe and Antonio Scarlata
Editing: Vivien Hillgrove
Music: Lila Downs and Todd Boekelheide
Cast: Ofelia Medina,Jose Araujo, Kyle Kibbe, Antonio Scarlata, Adele Kibbe and Karim Scarlata

Director’s Biography
Lourdes Portillo directed “The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo”, which was nominated for the Academy's Best Documentary in 1985, and the twenty other awards it received internationally earned Portillo the PBS funding she needed for her next film, “La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead”. “Señorita Extraviada” won many awards including The Silver Ariel and the Grand jury prize at the Sundance Film festival . Her work has been very influential in the work of new documentarians.