David Illescas

Prayers for the Stolen

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.

Drunken Birds

Willy's quest to find Marlena, his lost love, takes him from Mexico to Canada, where he is hired as a seasonal worker at the Bécotte farm, near Montreal. Several destinies intersect, worlds collide, tensions rise and moments of magical realism emerge during long work days.

Identifying Features

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.

Chicharras

Yuli (38) is the Topila (auxiliary police) of San Pablo Begu', a mountain community in Oaxaca where the inhabitants assume the responsibilities of self-government on a rotating basis on an honorary basis (Comunalidad) at the same time as they carry out their work and personal activities. At the entrance to the town, they hold back a group of machinery that is trying to move into the community to begin construction of a four-lane highway. No one in authority is aware of this and the community is on alert. San Pablo Begú will have to decide whether or not to accept the road project.

Extraños en un tren

Todo lo que fui(mos)

Cumbia for the Dead

With his unique gift of communicating with the dead, a cumbia-loving embalmer sets out on a road trip with a corpse, in search of the the deceased hidden money.