Northless (Norteado)
About Film
Session Times
Saturday 10 April 3:45pm
REVIEWS
A warmly human and complex corrective to the screaming anti-immigration extremists on cable news, this remarkably assured debut feature from Mexican writer-director Rigoberto Perezcano views a Oaxacan farmer’s attempts to cross over as a case of hopes deferred, sometimes sweetly, often tensely.
With a mostly unadorned, documentary like (but beautifully photographed) style that allows for the dignity of broken souls to rise above a harsh environment, Perezcano nudges his talented actors toward moments of quietly powerful clarity, without histrionics or predictably fated ends. What’s left is a sobering, charming and ultimately moving depiction of the geographical and emotional spaces that exist between places left behind and the ones we’re in a hurry to get to.
LA WEEKLY
RA
The theme of Mexican immigrants trying to cross the border into the U.S. has been so overdone, it's almost shocking to discover there really are new, compelling ways to tell this story. Northless will have to contend with an audience tired of the subject, but Rigoberto Perezcano's understated, warm, non-exploitative take on a young man's failed crossings, and the temporary life he has in Tijuana, reps an impressive debut and heralds a much-needed new voice.
After so many films mired in the wretchedness of illegal immigrants, Northless is an incredibly refreshing, deeply human take on this unstoppable phenomenon.
VARIETY
Jay Weissberg
The FIPRESCI Jury of the 11th IFF Bratislava awarded FIPRESCI Prize to Mexican-Spanish film Northless “for a delicate portrayal of living on the border between life and death, past and future, hope and despair, in a way that is both concrete and abstract, literal and symbolic.
FILM NEW EUROPE
Rigoberto Perezcano’s first work depicts more the pilgrimage of the feelings than the people’s migration.
The story has a simple but profound approach, and the audience that saw the premiere of the film seemed to understand the humorous wit included in what would, otherwise, be a drama suffered by thousands of people in our country in the pursuit of the American dream.
In Rigoberto Perezcano’s own words: “Norteado is a film that shows a real closeness to immigration in an unwitting humorous way, starting as a documentary and ending as fiction.
EL INFORMADOR
Altagracia Lizardo Medina
Films about illegal immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico rarely make much room to survey what’s going on in the south side of the border. Instead, Perezcano details an environment, a muted desperation, and a nearly existential futility.
All is told with minimum exposition; these are stoically drawn characters. (…) For Perezcano these are not merely figures in a landscape; hopefully his second film will be as refreshingly humane and lacking in glibness.
INDIEWIRE
Michael Koresky
Refreshingly free from politics, the drama focuses on an impoverished migrant who confronts daunting obstacles in his attempt to cross the border. Drama fans interested in a more personal look into the plight of the undocumented will appreciate this Spanish-Mexican co-production's naturalistic performances, timeliness, sly humor and evocative cinematography.
BOXOFFICE
Pam Grady
Norteado, Perezcano’s first work, co-written and produced by Édgar San Juan, was awarded the KNF prize, by the Circle of Film Critics from Holland. According to the jury, “this is a film that touched our minds and hearts" with its outstanding visual qualities, its wonderful performances and its passionate stories about the difficult situation of immigrants without identity papers trying to reach the USA.
LA JORNADA
Tania Molina Ramírez
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