The first feature by documentary and short-subject director Victor Gaviria, Rodrigo D. (No Futuro) explores the bleak and precarious lives of working-class street kids in Medellin. So dangerous is this world that three of the film's nonprofessional actors have been killed violently since production wrapped in 1988. The naturalistic script (is) written in near-inpenetrable Medellin street slang. It is based on an article that appeared in the local newspaper, El Mundo, about a teenager who leaped from the top floor of a downtown building. Rather than follow a linear plot, the film presents a slice of life as we follow Rodrigo and his teenage friends over a several-day period, exploring their world as they live it the best they can. Rodrigo (Ramiro Meneses) can't sleep at night. He has headaches and thinks about his mother, who died sometime previous to the film's story. He is also looking for a drum kit so he can start a punk band with his chums, who sell cocaine to school kids, steal cars, listen to raucous punk music or just hang around. Gaviria manages to capture the essence of this nether world through able camera work and judicious selection of locations-the shanty towns that line the valley walls and overlook modern Medellin. The story is unsettling, more often for things unsaid. Rodrigo's suicide becomes an existential decision in the face of a hopeless future. --Paul Lenti