Dana Rotberg described her second feature as the story of “people wandering about in Mexico City in search of a God that watches over them. But their God is often cruel and demands the sacrifice of the innocent.” Lost innocence is the tragic fate of a teenage girl, Alma, a fire-eater in a down-at-the-heels circus. Abandoned by her mother and driven out by the troupe, Alma falls in with a traveling family of puppeteers that performs tableaux from the Bible. In this tiny cult dominated by the grim Mother Refugio, the line between superstition and orthodox Catholicism is erased. Rotberg's deceptively laconic cinematic technique, and art direction that draws on the chaotic, sensuous palette of the streets of Mexico City, give Angel of Fire the flavor of “outsider” art, a startling vision painstakingly constructed from humble materials.