Director Cary Joji Fukunaga skillfully mixes various genres – thriller, illegal immigration social drama, love story, and western in this uncompromising award winning first film, the most moving and well-told saga of Latin American immigrants bound for the USA since 1983's El Norte.

The film weaves two stories. One involves Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a young woman from Honduras who joins her father and uncle in an odyssey through Guatemala and Mexico intended to take them to relatives in New Jersey. The other involves Willy, nicknamed Casper (Edgar Flores), a member of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang from southern Mexico, who joins with his leader and a 12-year-old gang recruit to rob those riding north on the tops of freight cars. Their paths cross.

Performances by the young leading players (both little known actors and non-actors) are uniformly engaging without trying to be ingratiating. Flores’ Casper is a tough kid who would likely drift away from the Mara to pursue a more normal life if given half a Chance. Meanwhile, through Casper’s sidekick, the impressionable Smiley, one sees how the gang iconography and discipline cast a spell to hypnotize youth.

Shot on extraordinary locations with a talented unknown cast, this award-winning film is a portrait of hope and desperation launches the career of an extraordinary new filmmaking talent. Winner, Best Director and Excellence in Cinematography Awards, 2009 Sundance Film Festival.