Ana Cristina Ordóñez

Marya Membreño

Blanca Itzel Pérez

Giselle Barrera Sánchez

Camila Gaal

Alejandra Camacho

Mayra Batalla

José Estrada

Julián Guzmán Girón

Norma Pablo

Memo Villegas

Eileen Yañez

David Illescas

Teresa Sánchez

Gabriela Núñez

Daniela Arroio Sandoval

Tiago Sann

Andrés Chavero Medina

Nohelia Moreno Álvarez

Edson Martínez

Alejandro Martínez Castillo

Olivia Lagunas

Edilberto Medina

Leonardo Heiblum

Dariela Ludlow Deloya

Lena Esquenazi

Oscar Tello

Jacobo Lieberman

Natalia Beristáin

Nicolás Celis

Dan Wechsler

Jamal Zeinal Zade

Juan Carlos Rojas Cacho

Helmut Dosantos

Viola Fügen

Jim Stark

Ursula Schneider

Raquel Belver

Marcela Arenas

Maya Scherr-Willson

Rachel Ellis

Doris Hepp

Federico González Jordán

Lala Samyn

Tania Zamora

Jennifer Clement

Joslyn Barnes

Danny Glover

Burkhard Althoff

Susan Rockefeller

Michael Weber

Paulo Gama

Tatiana Huezo

Miguel Schverdfinger

Drama

Noche de fuego

Pimienta Films

The Match Factory

Louverture Films

Jaque Content

Desvia Produções

Cactus Film & Video

Bord Cadre Films

ARTE

Hubert Bals Fund

Argentina

Brazil

Germany

Mexico

Switzerland

United States of America

France

Netherlands

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Prayers for the Stolen

It seems like the English title was created just to pull at the heart strings - That was totally unnecessary. The acting is really impressive.

We've spent a huge amount of time in Mexico (due to the pandemic). This story is a truth in some areas of Mexico. It is a heart-breaking, real-life, horror story. It is a fact that some villagers do not escape this horror. 

CinemaSerf

Yikes but this is quite a difficult film to watch. It's centred around three teenage girls who live amidst the poppy fields of Mexico. "Ana" (Maria Membreño) "Paula" (Alejandro Camacho) and "Maria" (Giselle Barrera Sánchez) try to live their lives as normally as they can, but the fact that their school teacher is leaving because he won't pay protection money to the drug pedlars gives us some indication of the society in which they live. Indeed, it's this teacher who raises the issue of a missing girl - and that enlightens us to the fact that once they reach a certain age, these young women have other "uses" and nobody dares speak out about it. The chronology flits between the current life of these three and their younger childhood and illustrates that for them, there is little hope of change unless they are prepared to leave - but that they don't want to do with out each other or their mothers (the fathers don't feature at all in this drama). The rather courageous role of motherhood is really well exemplified by Mayra Batalla's contribution as "Rita". A woman who treats her daughters first menstruation with a dread that the young girl does not yet appreciate the significance of. It's a beautifully photographed vicious circle, with the emphasis on vicious. There are attempts at government interventions, local troops stationed and helicopters depositing toxins on the flowers, but the thrust here from director Tatiana Huezo is of a cycle of depressing and dangerous inevitability that it is difficult to see a way out of. The three young actors perform evocatively here offering us quite emotional and poignant characterisations. They are not simply going to give up - but it's not that simple. Harrowing, yes, but it's clearly been written and presented offering hope for the girls and to raise some awareness of the fact that as long as the West keeps buying the stuff, these people will live in a modern day slavery that turns your stomach.

Prayers for the Stolen( 2021)

Find the light in the darkness.

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A review by badelf

Written by badelf on Sun Feb 12 2023

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