17-year-old Mateo dreams of Los Angeles. He wants to work there and support his family in their small Zapotec village in southern Mexico. The only way to leave the small village is to let himself be smuggled across the Mexican border for a lot of money. In search of protection and a sense of belonging on the other side of the border, he decides before his departure to join a gang that also has members in the village. But after the admission ritual he learns the real price for his membership: he has to kill a member of a rival gang. The drama LOS ÁNGELES about the effects of illegal migration by ethnologist Damian John Harper celebrated its premiere at the Berlinale.
17-year-old Mateo dreams of Los Angeles. He wants to work there and support his family in their small Zapotec village in southern Mexico.
The only way to leave the small village is to let himself be smuggled across the Mexican border for a lot of money. In search of protection and a sense of belonging on the other side of the border, he decides before his departure to join a gang that also has members in the village. But after the admission ritual he learns the real price for his membership: he has to kill a member of a rival gang.
The drama LOS ÁNGELES about the effects of illegal migration by ethnologist Damian John Harper celebrated its premiere at the Berlinale.