Festivals: Venice 2018 (Queer Lion), Sao Paulo 2018, Rio de Janeiro 2018, Thessaloniki 2018
\nYear: 2018
\nRuntime: 85 min.
\nCountry: Guatemala
\nDirector: Li Cheng
\nScreenplay: Li Cheng, George F Roberson
\nDir. of Photography: Paolo Giron
\nMusic: Yao Chen
\nEditor: Lenz Claure
\nCast: Enrique Salanic, Manolo Herrera, Ana Cecilia Mota
\nProduction: YQstudio LLC
\nSales: Rediance<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 (19 years old) lives with his Mother (50s) in Guatemala City \u2013 a typical lower-class existence in one of the world\u2019s most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. She never had a husband, and Jos\u00e9 is her youngest and favourite child. Her life is her church, and selling sandwiches at a bus stop. Jos\u00e9 spends his days on cramped buses and heavy traffic as he runs food to waiting drivers. Aloof and resigned to things as they are, he fills his free moments playing with his phone and random sex arranged on street corners and dating apps. When he meets Luis, a migrant from the rural Caribbean coast, they pursue an unexpected relationship and Jos\u00e9 is thrust into passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable. Made with nonprofessional actors, this is a film about love, loss and queer desire lived in the shadows of a culture defined by crime, violence, macho attitudes, strict religious beliefs and binding family ties. Guatemala is one of the world\u2019s most dangerous, religious, impoverished and socially conservative countries \u2013 and with the youngest population in all the Americas it\u2019s edge-poised for change; it sets a particular dramatic context to the story.<\/p>\n