Sin Nombre
Film Title (Original): Sin Nombre
Film Title (Spanish): Sin Nombre
Film Title (In English): Sin Nombre
Country Of Origin: Mexico, U.S.
Year Of Completion: 2008
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Format/Color/Bw: Color
Language: Spanish
Subtitles:
Rating: R
FILM CREDITS:
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Executive Producers: Gerardo Barrera, Pablo Cruz, Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal.
Producers: Amy Kaufman
Screenwriter: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Cinematographer: Adriano Goldman
Editor: Luis Carballar, Craig McKay Cast: Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores, Kristyan Ferrer, Tenoch Huerta Mejía
Best Director, 2009 Sundance Film Festival
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Excellence in Cincmatography, 2009 Sundance Film Festival
 
 

Cary Joji Fukunaga. Born in 1977, in Oakland, California, Cary Joji Fukunaga graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Working as a screenwriter, director, and cameraman led him to disparate parts of the world, from the Arctic Circle to Haiti to West Africa. His first short film Victoria para Chino (2005), won over 20 international awards, including a student Oscar. Sin nombre is his feature debut.


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.

 
   
 
 
 
III Dominican Republic Global Film Festival - 2009