Prayers for the Stolen

Three girls are growing up in a mountainous poppy-growing region of Mexico. Their mothers cut their hair like boys and say it is because of lice; the real reason is that the cartel takes girls. There are pits dug in the ground near the houses, and the girls climb into them when they hear an engine. Tatiana Huezo tells it without ever showing the threat, building it only from its traces in daily childhood: the school closing, the crop-dusting plane over the hill, the change in a mother's voice. It is the first fiction feature by a director who came from documentary, and that shows in how much it leans on observation rather than performance. Adapted from Jennifer Clement's novel, it took a special mention in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2021. Who it is for: viewers who like observational Latin American cinema. Who it is not for: anyone who needs distance from stories about children in danger.