“This powerful yet unsentimental thriller keeps audiences guessing as four Central American kids head to the US.” — Variety. “Tough, absorbing, suspenseful – a very substantial movie, with great compassion and urgency.” — The Guardian
This powerful yet unsentimental thriller keeps audiences guessing as four Central American kids head to the US by train.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2013
La jaula de oro 2013
“Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez was a camera assistant [for] Ken Loach… and there is something very Loachian in this tough, absorbing, suspenseful drama about three Guatemalan kids trying illegally to cross the Mexican border into the US… Brandon López and Karen Martínez play Juan and Sara, two kids who are desperate to get out of Guatemala, along with a young Indian boy they meet, Chauk. With some US dollar bills sewn secretly into their jeans, they plan on hopping boxcars and riding the rails up through Mexico and then over the border into California… Sara has prudently decided to disguise herself as a boy called ‘Oswaldo’ by cutting her hair, wearing a cap and taping up her chest under her shapeless T-shirt. It creates a poignant romantic tension and there is even a tender sort of Jules et Jim frisson between the three of them… It is a very substantial movie, with great compassion and urgency.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian