SON OF MONARCHS
directed by Alexis Gambis
This Mexican-American bilingual allegorical drama had its home premiere in October 2020 at the 18th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia and International Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
The film was awarded the 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Prize, awarded every year to a film at the Sundance Film Festival that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character.
After his grandmother’s death, a Mexican biologist living in New York returns to his hometown, nestled in the majestic monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán. The journey forces him to confront past traumas and reflect on his hybrid identity, sparking a personal and spiritual metamorphosis.
DRAMA 4K - 2021 - MEXICO & USA - 97 min
CAST Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Alexia Rasmussen, Lazaro Gabino Rodriguez
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE English & Spanish
PRODUCED BY Imaginal Disc & Labocine
DIRECTOR
Alexis Gambis is a French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist. His films combine
documentary and fiction, often embracing animal perspectives and experimenting
with new forms of scientific storytelling. His latest feature Son of Monarchs dissects
through issues of identity, (im)migration and animal/human evolution.
Alexis is currently working on two feature-length projects. His upcoming
French-American docu-fiction entitled “Mousetrap” brings together memory, mice
and magical realism in a haunting story about a young behavioral scientist obsessed by his childhood home. His next biopic, currently in development, entitled “El Beso” is about a retro-futurist journey into the life and science fiction writings of early 20th century Spanish father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal.