Quick Overview
Once you drink yerba mate, you start spotting it on screen. Here are four films and shows where a gourd turns up, what it says about the characters holding it, and how to set up the same scene at home.
Filmmakers use yerba mate the way they use a mug of coffee in an American kitchen. It tells you where a character is from and how they live, usually without anyone saying a word about it. Once you know what a gourd and bombilla look like, these scenes jump out.
Mate Is Everyday Shorthand on Screen
When a filmmaker wants a character to feel grounded, at home, or connected to South America, they hand them a gourd and a bombilla, the metal straw you sip through. Yerba mate is a traditional South American drink, often shared among friends, and on screen it usually signals daily life rather than a plot point. In Argentine and Uruguayan films especially, it sits in the background of ordinary scenes.
180° South: Mate in Patagonia
This 2010 documentary follows Jeff Johnson as he retraces a 1968 trip to Patagonia, and mate shows up the way it really does on the road down south, passed around in camp and in huts against the cold. The two men at the heart of the film are worth knowing: Yvon Chouinard, who founded Patagonia, and Doug Tompkins, who co-founded The North Face. It ties mate to a whole culture of the outdoors and doing more with less, which is a comfortable fit if you already reach for a cup on a cold morning.
Mozart in the Jungle: The Actor Who Wrote Mate In
In this comedy series, New York Symphony conductor Rodrigo DeSouza, played by Gael García Bernal, drinks mate throughout, often while working in his office. There is a real backstory: García Bernal picked up mate while filming in Misiones, the yerba-growing province in Argentina, and asked the writers to work it into the script. One of the most beautiful moments in the series (as a yerba mate fan) is a quiet, intimate scene where Rodrigo walks a newcomer through preparing yerba mate, one step at a time.
The Motorcycle Diaries: Mate on the Road
Walter Salles's 2004 film follows a young Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado across South America by motorcycle, again with Gael García Bernal in the lead. Mate is part of the ordinary texture of the trip, passed between two friends on a long road. It gives them comfort in the tough stretches and quietly shows their bond. It also marks how the continent changes around them, as they meet different levels of familiarity with the drink and different ways of preparing it along the way.
The Two Popes: A Taste of Home
In this 2019 film, Jonathan Pryce plays Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the Argentine who would become Pope Francis, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI. Bergoglio's mate is one of the small details that roots him in Buenos Aires. It sits alongside his love of football and tango as part of a warm, down-to-earth, people-first character, set against Benedict's formal and more solitary European world. The gourd never needs explaining. It simply tells you where he comes from and how he likes to live.
The Watchlist, At a Glance
Four picks for your next movie night:
- 180° South (2010): mate in camp on a return trip to Patagonia.
- Mozart in the Jungle (2014 to 2018): a conductor's desk-side gourd, and a quiet scene where he teaches a newcomer to prepare mate.
- The Motorcycle Diaries (2004): passed between two friends crossing a continent.
- The Two Popes (2019): a gourd as a quiet piece of home.
Recreate the Movie Magic at Home
- The 180° South cold-morning setup: fill a Cerro Fitz Roy 32oz Thermos before you head out and you have enough hot water for a long morning outside. It is named for the Patagonian peak the 1968 crew set out to climb, which makes it a fitting companion for this one.
- The Mozart in the Jungle ritual setup: to prepare mate the way Rodrigo shows it, start with something traditional. Pair the Libertad wooden yerba mate set with a Belgrano Unity Premium bombilla. A wooden gourd and a metal bombilla are a classic combination in the places yerba mate comes from.
- The Motorcycle Diaries road trip setup: take your yerba on the road in a Tan Suede Yerbera. It holds up to 250g of yerba mate and keeps it fresh between stops, and a built-in pocket keeps your bombilla right where you need it. Our guide to traveling with yerba mate covers the rest.
- The Two Popes stroll setup: the Condor Black and Glacier White mate combo set gives you one gourd each, one black and one white, for a long walk and a longer conversation with a friend.
Want to try what they are drinking? A starter kit has everything you need for your first cup.
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