Made over a span of eight years, this documentary is structured as a conversation between anthropologist Mabel Prelorán and Zulay Saravino, who has left her Ecuadorian mountain village to explore opportunities in Los Angeles. Working the land and making textiles to sell, Zulay’s industrious family sent all of their daughters to school—at the time an unusual move in Quinchuqui—and raised an intelligent, independent daughter whose literacy, business sense and introduction to the Preloráns led her to try her luck in the States. Devoted to her village, she relates a mesmerizing account of Otavaleñan traditions and reflects on her experiences in the US, while Mabel responds in turn with her own perspectives as an Argentinian expat. Despite finding aspects of Western culture exploitative, voyeuristic and isolating, Zulay remains circumspect and takes an active role in determining her destiny as well as the course of the film, as witnessed in the rare image of the anthropological subject shaping her own story in the editing room.