Sujo

A young boy orphaned by the cartel is up against inheriting a life of crime in this powerful coming-of-age story from an award-winning Mexican filmmaking duo.

In many ways, Sujo’s path was set out for him before he was born. The son of a sicario, he’s dragged along on hit jobs until his father is branded a traitor and murdered. The four-year-old then becomes the cartel’s next target – lest he later set out to avenge his dad’s death – so his aunt Nemesia agrees to raise him in a remote shack far from their town in Michoacán, alongside the sons of her friend Rosalia. The world of the outlaw threatens to encroach as the boys age, until Sujo is sent off to Mexico City in a bid to break the cycle.

In their second collaboration following Identifying Features (MIFF 2020), which tracked a mother’s search for her son amid narco violence, writer/directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez continue exploring this humanitarian crisis; in this Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner, they interrogate the possibility of escaping a life of crime. Eschewing graphic scenes of brutality in favour of a foreboding yet dreamlike undertone, they track not the war on drugs but its ripple effects on those unwillingly caught up in the maelstrom.

“A work of tremendous lyrical potency … Sujo thunderously demonstrates why Valdez and Rondero stand among those soon to be regarded as the new masters of Mexican cinema.” – IndieWire