MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated R
96 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

Sin Nombre (2009)

Sin Nombre will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Cary Fukunaga. Co-sponsored by The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, The Office of the Arts, the Alan W. Katzenstein Artist-in-Residence Program, and the Council for the Arts.

Making its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Sin Nombre is an epic dramatic thriller from award-winning director Cary Fukunaga.

Seeking the promise of America, a beautiful young Honduran woman, Sayra (Paulina Gaytan), joins her father and uncle on an odyssey to cross the gauntlet of the Latin American countryside en route to the United States. Along the way she crosses paths with a teenaged Mexican gang member, El Casper (Edgar M. Flores), who is maneuvering to outrun his violent past and elude his unforgiving former associates. Together they must rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards the hope of new lives. [www.filminfocus.com]

It contains risk, violence, a little romance, even fleeting moments of humor, but most of all, it sees what danger and heartbreak are involved. It is riveting from start to finish.
      -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. Read this review.