ESPN Films has announced the premiere of The Infinite Race, the latest documentary from two-time Emmy nominated filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz (Harvest Season, Reportero). A 30 for 30 film and a Quiet Pictures production, the documentary follows indigenous Tarahumara runners and their ongoing fight for survival in the badlands of Northern Mexico. Ruiz’s new film will premiere on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN Watch (VOD) on Tuesday, December 15.
Using the backdrop of a dramatic, and often dangerous, 50-mile footrace in the basin of Chihuahua’s Copper Canyons, The Infinite Race delves into how and why the Tarahumara— who refer to themselves as the Rarámuri—run by telling the story of three runners who are fighting to maintain their community’s traditional practices in the shadow of encroaching drug cartels and increased foreign attention.
Silvino Cubesare, 41, Irma Chávez, 28, and Catalina Rascón, 19, all run for different reasons and have each been forced to adapt to the changes affecting their ancestral territories. But despite the obstacles in their paths, they are all connected to a tradition that sees running as an act of resistance—an infinite race.
Placing the Caballo Blanco Ultra-Marathon under a microscope, Ruiz examines the conflicting forces at play in the region that simultaneously threaten and support the Tarahumara. The geographical location of the Tarahumara mountain range and the rugged composition of the terrain has made this region of Northern Chihuahua particularly susceptible to drug trafficking, offering a strategic vantage point into the United States that is sought after by competing cartels.
Screened at numerous film festivals including DocLands, Full Frame, DocsMX, and SF DocFest: San Francisco Documentary Festival, The Infinite Race interrogates the devastating effects of organized crime on the Tarahumara people who are systematically being forced from their ancestral land and suffering the impact of deforestation caused by legal and illegal logging, an industry fueled by the region’s drug trade.
Isolated between a government that largely ignores them and violent cartels that wish to forcibly remove them, the Tarahumara band around their communal practice of long-distance running and an ultra-marathon that brings both international attention, international runners and much-needed resources to their region.
The Infinite Race nevertheless exposes the limits of such support, making clear the tensions between opening up the region to foreign tourism and the very real benefits that the local community receives from such attention. By situating one against the other, the documentary uncovers a microcosm of the competing global forces exerting pressure on indigenous communities the world over.
—Cinema Tropical