March 2011
 Carlos Efraín Pérez Rojas (Mixe) is a documentary videomaker who has focused his work on indigenous people, social movements, and human rights in Mexico. In 2005 he received the Reebok Human Rights Award, which honors activists under the age of 30, and included a grant to enable his continuing work. He was awarded a National Video Resources Media Arts Fellowship in 2002.
Pérez Rojas’ most recent film, And the River Flows On, records the attempts of farmers in Guerrero to block a hydro-electric project that threatens their homes and livelihood. It won the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award at the 2010 imagineNATIVE Film Festival, and the Golden Drum award of the 2010 Nepal International Indigenous Film Festival and has screened at more than ten other film festivals. The film had received a National Geographic All Roads Film Project Seed Grant. Pérez Rojas served as cinematographer on ¡Viva México! (d. Nicolas Défossé), which was voted Best Documentary at the 2010 Latin American Film Festival in Brussels and took audience awards at three other festivals. Reclaiming Justice: Guerrero's Indigenous Community Police received the Human Rights Award at the 2004 Encuentro Hispanoamericano de Cine y Video Documental Independiente film festival and the Best Film Award at the 2003 Geografías Suaves film festival.
From 2003 to 2005 Pérez Rojas worked with the Centro de Derechos Humanos de La Montaña Tlachinollan to document civil rights violations in Guerrero. He is the former coordinator of Guerrero-based projects for Promedios de Comunicación Comunitaria, a bi-national organization that develops and distributes media concerned with indigenous rights in Mexico. He has led video workshops in indigenous communities in Chiapas and Guerrero and helped form Video Tamix, a community media center producing and broadcasting television and radio in his hometown of Tamazulapam in the Sierra Mixe of the state of Oaxaca. Pérez Rojas currently lives with his family in Lyon, France.
"The work that I do about the social movements of indigenous
communities reflects national and local considerations. For example,
I speak of the problems that exist, but I always give a constructive
message of hope, because the idea is that video is able to awaken
solidarity in the people who watch it. For me, provoking a reaction
is something that goes hand in hand with video. So for now, I
feel like a video activist."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Carlos Efraín
Peréz Rojas - courtesy of the filmmaker
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