"La jaula de oro," a movie which follows three young Guatemalan immigrants as they hitch a ride on cargo trains across the length of Mexico in an attempt to cross into the United States, has taken home top honors at the Viña del Mar Film Festival in Chile, winning the Astor de Oro prize as this year's best feature-length film. The award marks the second prestigious prize brought home by the largely Mexican crew - at the Cannes Film Festival in May, judges gave it the Gillo Pontecorvo Award, praising its "social commitment, fresh cinematography and the film narrative." Scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch a trailer for "La jaula de oro" ("The Golden Cage").
Judges said the film, which was directed by Diego Quemada-Diez, "takes the viewer on a captivating trip full of subtleties which allow it to transmit the terrible experience of being uprooted", and praised the filmmakers' "talent in finding and constructing moving and authentic characters", "the maturity of their cinematographic arguments", and the way it "finds a pace and a precise tone to narrate a film which hides a profound questioning of the meaning of life". "La jaula de oro" also netted four other distinctions, one from an audience vote, two informal ones from filmmaking groups for its cinematography and another from a Catholic media association.
According to the Viña del Mar Film Festival's website, the film's main characters are "tough guy Juan (Brandon Lopez), Sara (Karen Martinez), who cuts her hair and binds her breasts in order to pass as a boy, and Samuel (Carlos Chajon), the smallest and most easily swayed of the trio", who hail from a slum in Guatemala. On their way through Mexico toward the United States, a fourth teenager joins them: Chauk (Rodolfo Dominguez), a Tzotzil Indian from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas who speaks little Spanish. Variety says the "final tragic steps seem inevitable, and yet the outcome is virtually impossible to predict, even as it explains the surreal falling-snow motif subtly interwoven throughout - a sight completely alien in Guatemala and now imbued with unforgettable significance." Immigrants from Guatemala and other Central American countries are braving the perilous journey to the United States in increasing numbers, and filmmakers in Mexico and abroad are responding. "La jaula de oro" comes four years after the release of the Gael Garcia Bernal-produced "Sin nombre" ("Without a Name"), in which a Honduran gang member tries to leave behind his past life by way of the northward-bound trains.
RELATED: Cannes 2013: Mexican Film 'La Jaula de Oro' ('The Golden Cage') Wins Award In Prestigious Film Festival
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