Damayanti Quintanar, Diana Garcia, Edgar Flores
After murdering his gang's leader, a teenager joins a family of Honduran immigrants making the dangerous journey across Mexico to the United States, avoiding a fellow gang member who has been sent to ...( read more
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DVD Release Date: September 1, 2009
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Stats: 820 reviews
Flixster Reviews (820)
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November 11, 2009a great example of near perfect story telling. the story pulls some conventional punches, but lays them out through some wonderful originality as well. definitely one of the most gritty and heart wrenching films of the year, the film is careful not to glorify anything, leaving ...( read more)
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October 28, 2009Too often movies have a tendency to sensationalize gang violence. Tony Montana, from 1983's "Scarface", is beloved by film fans across the world, despite the conclusion of that film involving him snorting a mountain of cocaine and going on a murderous rampage. "City of God" also ...( read more)
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October 12, 2009A fairly impressive gangster/romance/drama. It tells a story of a gangster trying to break free from the gang life, a girl trying to break into the US and a young boy breaking into the gang. For all it's powerful storytelling, the film leaves it's characters at a distance, making...( read more)
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September 26, 2009Tense, unrelentingly grim drama of two people whose paths cross violently atop a moving train: a Honduran girl attempting to emigrate to the US with her family, and a Mexican gang member attempting to rob them. Film's ability to seamlessly combine a story about immigration with g...( read more)
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March 14, 2009Sin Nombre is a heavy, hard-hitting dramatic thriller that breathes new life into the age-old cinematic representation of illegal immigrants and their plight. This movie is jam-packed with so much tension, suspense, visceral visuals, down-to-earth acting and memorable moments--yo...( read more)
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November 9, 2009La historia de un joven que intenta llegar a Estados Unidos, mientras escapa de un ex compañero que ha sido enviado a matarlo.
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Critic Reviews
August 14, 2009
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times
April 16, 2009
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune
This is a stunning feature debut for director Cary Fukunaga. The story borrows from road movies and crime thrillers, but the scenes and situations vibrate with authenticity. full review
April 9, 2009
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
[Director] Fukunaga's startlingly impressive first feature is almost ruthless in its depiction of the brutality and degradation confronting the hidden hordes that cross rivers and hop trains trying to... full review
April 2, 2009
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
It contains risk, violence, a little romance, even fleeting moments of humor, but most of all, it sees what danger and heartbreak are involved. It is riveting from start to finish. full review
March 20, 2009
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
There are some brief minutes when the tension drops and the story starts to sag, but Fukunaga almost always fills the frame with something worth seeing, and the story has a built-in suspense. full review
March 19, 2009
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
The scope is epic and the achievement, though solidly grounded in conventional storytelling, is a revelation. full review
March 19, 2009
Claudia Puig, USA Today
That this is Fukunaga's first film is astonishing, given its sharp script, technical proficiency and suspenseful pacing. The ensemble cast is top-notch. full review
Comments
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March 28, 2009Please start with part one, this letter was sent by Cary on Premier day March 20th, courtesy of flavorwire!
Cary Fukunaga letter part 4:
For you, the audience, I hope that Sin Nombre creates an experience that is both thrilling and emotional. I hope that you can walk out of the theater having seen through the eyes of these gang members and immigrants with a sense of connection that you wouldn’t have imagined possible. I also hope you just enjoy the film for simply being a good old-fashioned post-industrial Western tale of redemption.
All my best,
Cary Joji Fukunaga, writer/director
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March 28, 2009
Cary Joji Fukunaga Letter part 3:
our train was attacked by bandits; after several gunshots and screams of chaos, a Guatemalan immigrant lay dead—he did not want to give up the little money he had to make this journey.
In the scope of things, I only shared in these moments of danger briefly, while these immigrants had to continue facing this journey on their own. But what you’ll see onscreen in Sin Nombre is an homage to their true-life stories told from the perspectives of a young girl from Honduras, Sayra, on a journey to New Jersey with a father she hardly knows, and a young gang member, Casper, whose hope for a better life may be cut short by the gang that he once called his family. The two of them will change each other’s lives forever.
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March 28, 2009
Cary Joji Fukunaga letter part 2:
deportation back to their home countries. The images conjured up a post-industrial version of our own iconic Wild West, but instead of covered wagons it was a freight train, and instead of the classic Hollywood version of “the savages” it was marauding bandits and tattoo-covered gang members who seemed to have been pulled from general casting in Mad Max. And yet this wasn’t the Wild West; it was real and it was happening, is still happening, just south of our border. This was the story I wanted to tell.
I followed the first draft with two years of research in Mexico. I spent time with gang members in and out of prisons, interviewed immigrants from Nicaragua on up to the Texas border and, ultimately, traveled with hundreds of them from Tapachula in the south of Mexico to Orizaba, Veracruz. Together we experienced hunger, braved the weather and nights of hidden dangers, and grew to depend on one another. One particularly dark night in Chiapas..... -
March 28, 2009
Courtesy of Flavorwire:
Update: We just got this “letter” from Cary from the Landmark Theatres. We’re adding it to the post because it’s adorable.
Dear Film Club Members,
I would like to invite you to see my first feature film, Sin Nombre, about to face the world on screens across the country. All filmmakers will consider their films personal, and perhaps nothing is more personal than the first one. This film is even more personal to me in that I risked my neck to make it, literally.
I began working on this project in 2005, not long after my short film Victoria Para Chino (based on the tragedy in Victoria, Texas, where 19 immigrants died inside of a refrigerated trailer) received an Honorable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival. While researching the short, I had learned that thousands of Central American immigrants were crossing Mexico atop freight trains, facing a maelstrom of dangers, including bandits, gangs, corrupt police, and the constant threat of deportation ba -
January 30, 2009World-premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, an epic dramatic thriller written and directed by Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga in his feature debut. The filmmaker’s firsthand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the U.S. form the basis of the Spanish-language movie. The film tells the story of Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option – emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States, where her father now has a new family. Meanwhile, Casper, a.k.a. Willy (Edgar Flores), is a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico, and facing an uncertain future. A member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang brotherhood, he has just brought to the Mara a new recruit, 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), who undergoes a rough initiation. While Smiley quickly takes to gang life, Casper tries to protect his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana García), keeping their love a secret from the Mara. But when Martha encounters Tapachula’s Mara leader Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), she is brutally taken from Casper forever. Sayra and her relatives manage to cross over into Mexico. There, they join other immigrants waiting at the Tapachula train yards. When a States-bound freight train arrives one night, they successfully rush to board – riding atop it, rather than in the cars – as does Lil’ Mago, who has commandeered Casper and Smiley along to rob immigrants. When day breaks, Lil’ Mago makes his move and Casper in turn makes a fateful decision. Casper must now navigate the psychological gauntlet of his violent existence and the physical one of the unforgiving Mara, but Sayra bravely allies herself with him as the train journeys through the Mexican countryside towards the hope of new lives.
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