Border Chocolate – The Second Life Economy of Cars | Green Shorts Program 3 | Green Film Festival of San Francisco 2025

Green Film Festival of San Francisco 2025

Green Shorts Program 3

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This documentary uncovers the complex journey of secondhand vehicle exports between the United States and Mexico—a trade that profoundly influences mobility, economics, and the environment in both nations. With approximately 1.4 million vehicles crossing the border annually, many of them introduced informally and colloquially referred to as "carros chocolate", these cars become indispensable to daily life in Mexico while sparking critical questions about long-term sustainability.

As hybrid and electric vehicles sales increase in the US and begin entering the second-hand export flow, the narrative spotlights a growing environmental challenge: the disposal and recycling of spent batteries. These components, laden with toxic materials, pose significant risks to land and water pollution in regions ill-equipped with the necessary infrastructure for safe handling. The film explores the tension between the promise of cleaner technologies and the unintended consequences of inadequate end-of-life management in communities reliant on used cars.

Through the voices of everyday users, mechanics, scrapyard workers, and binational environmental experts, the documentary underscores the urgent need for robust regulatory frameworks, sustainable recycling practices, and international cooperation to ensure the responsible management and reintegration of critical minerals into North American battery supply chains. It invites audiences to reflect on the broader implications of transitioning to electric mobility in a transnational context, where gaps in infrastructure and policy risk undermining progress toward a cleaner, more equitable future.

The film draws from original fieldwork by Francisco Parés Olguín, conducted as part of his graduate research on the U.S.–Mexico used vehicle trade.

Director Biography

Adrián Macías is a filmmaker, photographer, and screenwriter with broad experience in documentary and commercial production. He began his career with Jalmá (2012), a documentary nominated at the Morelia International Film Festival, and went on to work with ëskua Casa Productora on projects for major clients like Coca-Cola, Cemex, and Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Year
2025
Runtime
15 minutes
Country
Mexico, United States

Director
Adrian Macias Diaz

7 films in package

Border Chocolate – The Second Life Economy of Cars

This documentary uncovers the complex journey of secondhand vehicle exports between the United States and Mexico—a trade that profoundly influences mobility, economics, and the environment in both nations. With approximately 1.4 million vehicles crossing the border annually, many of them introduced informally and colloquially referred to as "carros chocolate", these cars become indispensable to daily life in Mexico while sparking critical questions about long-term sustainability. As hybrid and electric vehicles sales increase in the US and begin entering the second-hand export flow, the narrative spotlights a growing environmental challenge: the disposal and recycling of spent batteries. These components, laden with toxic materials, pose significant risks to land and water pollution in regions ill-equipped with the necessary infrastructure for safe handling. The film explores the tension between the promise of cleaner technologies and the unintended consequences of inadequate end-of-life management in communities reliant on used cars. Through the voices of everyday users, mechanics, scrapyard workers, and binational environmental experts, the documentary underscores the urgent need for robust regulatory frameworks, sustainable recycling practices, and international cooperation to ensure the responsible management and reintegration of critical minerals into North American battery supply chains. It invites audiences to reflect on the broader implications of transitioning to electric mobility in a transnational context, where gaps in infrastructure and policy risk undermining progress toward a cleaner, more equitable future. The film draws from original fieldwork by Francisco Parés Olguín, conducted as part of his graduate research on the U.S.–Mexico used vehicle trade.

In tropical North Queensland, locals must share the coast with saltwater crocodiles, one of nature’s most successful apex predators. With fatalities on both sides of the conflict, is it possible to achieve a peaceful co-existence between man and ‘monster’?

Neah Bay: Restoring Ancestral Water

For thousands of years Makah Tribal fishermen like Robert Moss hunted for traditional foods in the waters of Washington's Neah Bay. But today thousands of tons of marine debris literally loom over the Makah Tribe's ancestral waters, threatening to choke the waters that sustained these self-described ocean hunters' families for generations - including a dystopian 3,000-ton piece of concrete-and-steel highway bridge abandoned decades ago. It's a daily reminder of the potentially toxic waters plaguing this small fishing community. In this story of environmental and social justice, a coalition of motivated Tribal leaders and organizations works together in a spectacle of mechanical and human determination to demolish, remove, and recycle the massive decaying highway fragment and abandoned vessels of Neah Bay, to restore healthy waters and traditional foods to the Makah community.

Planting Resistance

In the central jungle of Peru, three generations of Indigenous women face multiple forms of violence such as extractivism, racism, and machismo in the context of the climate crisis. They lead actions from the indigenous communities to defend their integral territory: protecting their sacred places, reforesting with ancestral plants, protecting their water sources, and guaranteeing food sovereignty for communities.

The Art of Looking

Two seemingly different groups of people - astrophysicists who try to understand the world by looking at it through telescopes and slime researchers who study the micro-world of the smallest organisms through their microscopes - come to surprisingly similar conclusions about the nature of things and show that the main drive of humanity may be our natural curiosity.

Toni grows oranges. He loves them, they are his treasure. Until one day, strange cargo ships dock in the valley. Cargos loaded with... GREEN oranges!

Green Shorts Program 3 Q&A

This virtual screening is eligible for audience awards! Unlock it to cast your vote.

$10After unlocking, you'll have 43 hours 52 minutes to start watching. Once you begin, you'll have 24 hours to finish watching. Need help?

This documentary uncovers the complex journey of secondhand vehicle exports between the United States and Mexico—a trade that profoundly influences mobility, economics, and the environment in both nations. With approximately 1.4 million vehicles crossing the border annually, many of them introduced informally and colloquially referred to as "carros chocolate", these cars become indispensable to daily life in Mexico while sparking critical questions about long-term sustainability.

As hybrid and electric vehicles sales increase in the US and begin entering the second-hand export flow, the narrative spotlights a growing environmental challenge: the disposal and recycling of spent batteries. These components, laden with toxic materials, pose significant risks to land and water pollution in regions ill-equipped with the necessary infrastructure for safe handling. The film explores the tension between the promise of cleaner technologies and the unintended consequences of inadequate end-of-life management in communities reliant on used cars.

Through the voices of everyday users, mechanics, scrapyard workers, and binational environmental experts, the documentary underscores the urgent need for robust regulatory frameworks, sustainable recycling practices, and international cooperation to ensure the responsible management and reintegration of critical minerals into North American battery supply chains. It invites audiences to reflect on the broader implications of transitioning to electric mobility in a transnational context, where gaps in infrastructure and policy risk undermining progress toward a cleaner, more equitable future.

The film draws from original fieldwork by Francisco Parés Olguín, conducted as part of his graduate research on the U.S.–Mexico used vehicle trade.

Director Biography

Adrián Macías is a filmmaker, photographer, and screenwriter with broad experience in documentary and commercial production. He began his career with Jalmá (2012), a documentary nominated at the Morelia International Film Festival, and went on to work with ëskua Casa Productora on projects for major clients like Coca-Cola, Cemex, and Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Year
2025
Runtime
15 minutes
Country
Mexico, United States

Director
Adrian Macias Diaz