Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

The Inheritors

Eugenio Polgovsky • 1h 29m

Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2009 • 90 minutes

The most highly praised and awarded Mexican documentary in many years, THE INHERITORS by Eugenio Polgovsky immerses us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor.

The film takes us into the agricultural fields, where children barely bigger than the buckets they carry, work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, or beans, for which they are paid by weight. Infants in baskets are left alone in the hot sun, or are breast-fed by mothers while they pick crops.

THE INHERITORS also observes other labor routines, including the production of earthen bricks, cutting cane, gathering firewood, ox-plowing fields and planting by hand, and even more artistic endeavors such as carving wooden figures and weaving baskets to sell.

The indelible impression conveyed by THE INHERITORS, in which everyone-from the frailest elders to the smallest of toddlers-must work reveals how the cycle of poverty is passed on, from one generation to another.

"Offers a remarkable example of cinema verite, trusting in the power of its images…Highly recommended."—Video Librarian

Tags
agriculture, agriculture and food, americas, anthropology and archaeology, area studies, business, campesinos, child, child labor, children, countryside, documentary, dvd, economic sociology, eugenio polgovsky, expository, farming, farms, film, human rights, icarus films, labor, labor and economics, labor studies, latin american studies, mexican, mexico, ovid, polgovsky, poverty, rural, rural studies, s_0009, s_0014, s_0105, s_0150, s_0166, s_0250, s_0263, s_0295, s_0370, s_0638, s_0650, slums, social issues, social studies, sociology, the, the inheritors, title_i, video, work, working, world regions, youth issues

Up Next in Eugenio Polgovsky

  • Resurrección / Resurrection
    1:33:52
    Resurrección / Resurrection

    Resurrección / Resurrection

    Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2016 • 93 minutes

    The once-paradisiacal waterfall of "El Salto de Juanacatlán" in Jalisco used to be known as the "Mexican Niagara”, a source of pleasure and sustenance for the villages surrounding it. This natural idyll was heavily polluted when an ...

  • Trópico de Cancer / Tropic of Cancer
    54:15
    Trópico de Cancer / Tropic of Cancer

    Trópico de Cancer / Tropic of Cancer

    Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2004 • 52 minutes

    Polgovsky’s stunning debut immerses the viewer in the impoverished lives of families in the arid desert region of San Luis Potosi in Mexico (situated on the global parallel known as Tropic of Cancer), who survive by selling plants a...

  • Mitote / Mexican Ritual
    53:16
    Mitote / Mexican Ritual

    Mitote / Mexican Ritual

    Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2012 • 54 minutes

    A shaman’s mystical rituals, furious electricians on hunger strike and a euphoric football crowd collide in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s central square, the ancient ceremonial heart of the Aztec empire. The documentary essay Mitote(Nah...

×