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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
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Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
Login
Facebook
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Twitter
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Films
found one film
with a digital version available
x
Directors
“Dreiss, Meredith”
x
Series
“0”
x
Status
“A”
x
films with a digital version
1
x
Region
Central America
1
Country
Mexico
1
Keywords
Archaeobotany / Ethnobotany
1
Food
1
History
1
Directors
Brown, David
1
Dreiss, Meredith
1
x
Series
not set
1
x
Country of production
United States
1
Year of production
2014
1
Status
Film
Agave is Life
2014
59
‘
Directed by
Meredith Dreiss
David Brown
.
Agave is Life is a documentary film about mankind’s 10,000 year-long symbiotic alliance with the marvelous agave plant, from which tequila, Mexico’s iconic distilled spirit, is derived. The documentary takes viewers back to a time when hunter-gatherers relied on the agave plant as a source of food, drink, shelter and fiber while roaming desert regions of Mexico and the American Southwest. With the advent of early agriculture, and later, the development of more complex civilizations, agave played a role in the longevity, success, and ritual life of ancient cultures in these regions. Only recently have archaeologists realized how important the agave plant was to pre-Columbian people living in what may seem like marginal environments. It is through their investigations that the story unfolds, starting with feasting rituals and practices among hunter-gatherers and early agave farmers, and ending with current day environmental concerns. Along the way we learn how this unique desert plant, and its products, once integral to human survival, community gatherings, and religious rites, has become embedded in identity, mythology, art, and cultural traditions. After the Spanish Conquest, the once sacred agave was transformed into an economic commodity with meteoric increases in fiber, pulque, and distilled spirit production. In recent decades, however, competition with beer has all but eliminated Mexico’s once flourishing pulque market while synthetics have severely curtailed the agave fiber industry. Tequila and mezcal producers, the survivors of agave’s early commercial success in Mexico, are threatened today by climate change, water scarcity, and the lack of biological diversity in their fields. While biologists and producers struggle to reverse this negative trend, the multi-purpose agave plant rides through another transition for 21st century consumers. Hope for the plant’s future may one day rely upon more traditional agricultural methods and, as in the past, the use of its many products — from fuel to musical instruments.
Central America
Archaeobotany / Ethnobotany
Food
History