Solstice Project

DOLORES RATZÁN and ANNA SOFAER
Anna Sofaer and her Solstice Project’s crew filmed in Palenque, Mexico, in December of 2025 for her fourth film, From the Mind’s Eye." With the guidance of Maya archaeoastronomer Alonso Mendez, they recorded the magnificent temples’ alignments with auspicious solar and lunar events.
In February of 2026, Anna had the good fortune to visit Dolores Ratzán, a Maya elder and healer in her village of Santiago, on the edge of the sacred Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Guided by Dolores, Anna learned how this traditional village had preserved their ancient knowledge of the Sun and Moon and handed it down for generations. When the Spanish conquistadors built their cathedral on top of the ancient Maya temple at the heart of the home of the ancestors and destroyed imagery of their sacred understandings, the Maya ingeniously preserved the knowledge in their weavings, which live to this very day.