Who is Mamá Lulú?
Lourdes Mejía is known within the student and social movement as "Mama Lulú." It was the young students and activists themselves who gave her this name, as they see in her a maternal figure who accompanies them day by day, encouraging them to resist. But above all, the name is an honor and recognition of her deep maternal love, as the mother of Carlos Sinuhé.
Lourdes was born into a farming family from Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City. At a very young age, she began working in the fields alongside her grandmother and grandfather. After finishing secondary school at the age of fifteen, due to her family's lack of financial resources, she started working as an assistant in a medical office.
From that moment, her working life began, and it would diversify throughout her life. For her, it was and still is very important that women are able to maintain an autonomous economy at all times.
At 21, she had her first daughter. Two years later, Carlos was born. During times of need, Lourdes held up to three jobs simultaneously. She preferred to go without sleep rather than let her children go hungry or struggle to continue their studies. She has always been clear that her priority is her children, whom she loves deeply and for whom she would give everything, even her life.
The night of October 26, 2011, made her life take a 180° turn. Nothing was ever the same again, because after the tragedy of the murdered of her son, nothing should be the same. She will not rest until she finds justice for Carlos.
CARLOS SINUHÉ CUEVAS MEJÍA
SYNOPSIS
"Mama Lulu" traverses the streets of Mexico City every day in search of answers.
Amid rallies, meetings, and visits to the justice prosecutor's office, her public life unfolds; however, within her home, the rooms hold the memory of her son with whom she converses daily.
Carlos Sinuhé, was a student and activist at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, murder on October 26, 2011. Since that day, his mother, Lourdes Mejía, has immersed herself in political and legal fights, hoping to find justice for her son.
In a country where justice is blind, mothers become seekers of truth. A child is forever, alive or dead.
Why make this documentary?
"Mamá Lulú" is a film that opens a window into the external and internal world of Lourdes Mejía, who, like dozens of mothers in Mexico, loves and resists through her activism.
Lourdes, together with other mothers from Ciudad Universitaria, organizes in small collectives, creating a network of women who exchange knowledge about their legal and political struggles, and where they also find solidarity and comfort.
Her fight and dignified rage can serve as an example and inspiration to others, as well as a call to action, so that together
—despite the fear that demanding justice in such a violent country may cause us—,
we can build a better world, where MEMORY, TRUTH, AND JUSTICE are the fundamental pillars of our society.
Throughout the development of this documentary, I have met many people who recognize this story, and in "Mamá Lulú," the thousands of mothers who fight.
From the mothers in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina; the mothers of "Mafapo" in Soacha, Colombia; the mothers of Chile, who are looking for their children who disappeared during the dictatorship; the mothers of Spain, victims of the Civil War; to the mothers of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala. They are all women who, with great dignity, demand memory, truth, and justice for their loved ones.
For me, our wounds and battles must be recognized and talked about, because only in this way can we find a path that leads us to collective mourning. For us, this film is precisely that: a rite of passage towards collective mourning.
-Mar Rivera-