Documentary

Length: 30 minutes

Year: 2005

Role of applicant in the production: director

Broadcasters involved: TV Kino Polska

Editing: Anna Sieradzka-Kubacka

Sound: Janusz Borysiak

Reading: Karol Bajer

Direction: Małgorzata Szyszka

Production: TVC JJ, GPTM Association

Together with Witek Jacórzyński - a Polish anthropologist who has been working for 10 years in Mexico, we are going to Guatemala to become familiar with the San Simon Cult. We cross the border in the Chiapas state and arrive at the Atitlan Lake, nestled between 3 volcanoes. The figure of San Simon in Guatemala is known by a great number of alternative names - for example: Mashimon, Judas Iscariote. There are 32 chapels in the country in which the cult of San Simon is worshiped. Since recently in Guatemala, there is a school of Maya priests that apart from training clergymen, tries to unify the San Simone cult.

Why does San Simon, who looks at us from the glass-case, look like a mestizo - bureaucrat? A mestizo - bureaucrat derogates and humiliates Guatemala Indians. So why do the Indians adore him? Who is San Simon? Why do Mayas worship him in secret from Catholic priests?