SUJO

Sujo is four years old when his father, a cartel hitman, is killed. The cartel wants no witnesses and no heirs, so his aunt Nemesia takes the boy to safety in the countryside, to a house off the roads where he can grow up unnoticed. As a teenager, he is drawn back towards the men his father worked for, and later to Mexico City, where he tries to build a life of his own. “Sujo” by the Mexican directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez (Mexico, 2024) follows him across four chapters and asks whether a child can escape his father’s legacy.

Rondero and Valadez tell the violence in Michoacán not as spectacle but from the perspective of those who must live with its consequences, in calm images and with a long breath. The film premiered at Sundance 2024, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the international dramatic competition. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2024.

Shown at the 2024 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

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