Our Mothers

Cannes Camera d’Or (best first feature prize) was awarded this year to an extraordinary work from Guatemala. The film focuses on Ernesto a forensic anthropologist who works at an institute for forensic medicine, while in the background, war criminals stand trial for crimes committed in the 1980s civil war, which cost 200,000 lives and left 40,000 missing. When an elderly woman comes to his office with evidence of atrocities and murders, including a photo of a rebel leader who closely resembles his father, Ernesto decides to delve deep into the case. From within the traumatic memory of his homeland, a memory insufficiently exposed in the West, Guatemalan director César Díaz creates a tantalizing, humane film whose cinematic qualities matches its historical-political significance.