Song Without a Name

Melina León's 2019 Peruvian film is set during the political crisis of the late eighties. Georgina, who has come from the Andes, is pregnant; hearing an announcement on the radio she goes to a clinic offering free care, and immediately after the birth her baby is taken and never returned. The clinic disappears the next day. All she meets in government offices and police stations is indifference; nobody listens to a woman speaking Quechua. She eventually goes to a newspaper and the journalist Pedro takes up the case. The film draws on a real case of baby trafficking uncovered by the director's father during his years as a reporter. It is shot in black and white in a narrow frame that keeps the characters hemmed in. It screened in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. Who it's for: viewers who like Latin American cinema and formally strong drama. Who it's not for: anyone expecting an ending in which justice is done; the film does not provide one.