El Norte

After their father is killed in a Maya village in Guatemala, Enrique and Rosa flee north. They cross Mexico, crawl over the border through an abandoned sewer tunnel and reach Los Angeles. The north is not the place they imagined. Gregory Nava directed and wrote with Anna Thomas. The film is in three parts: village, journey, city. It was made independently and under difficult conditions, shot partly in Mexico and partly in California, with much of the dialogue in the Mayan language Kaqchikel and in Spanish. The tunnel is the sequence everyone remembers: crawling through a dark passage full of rats. Its tone sets everything that follows. El Norte was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and counts among the first American independent productions nominated in that category. It entered the National Film Registry in 1995. Much of the template for how migration is told on screen was set here. Who it is for: viewers who follow migration stories and eighties independent film. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for an optimistic ending; the film offers no relief.