Brooding with Storm Clouds:

After twenty-six years, award-winning photographer Lena Mendel returns to Oaxaca, Mexico, where at the age of sixteen she spent a school year that transformed her life. Now she’s back with Carmen and Marta, classmates from that magic time. With them, too, is Lena’s adolescent son, Gabriel, who now prefers to communicate with his mother via mime rather than words. While their mission is to inter the ashes of Marta’s late husband Tony, an unexpected encounter upends the lives of mother and son.

Populated by life-sized puppets and daring fireworks, and scored by mariachis and guitar serenades, Oaxaca’s vibrant creativity twines with the complex dynamics of the state’s 2006 politics and its connection to her friends. Soon this journey into the past exposes long-buried memories and past passions, and both Lena and Gabe find themselves facing urgent questions of acceptance and forgiveness.