Ixcanul

Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante has been widely praised for this debut feature, scripted in collaboration with a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors. Ixcanul follows the experiences of seventeen-year-old María (María Mercedes Coroy) and her family, who are Kaqchikel-speaking Mayans working on a coffee plantation at the base of an active volcano. Bustamante mixes a near-documentary style with dreamlike expression inspired by fables. Ultimately, the tensions that arise in the drama speak to the larger plight of indigenous people in contemporary Guatemala; the film offers “a portrait of a largely unseen community refreshingly free of exoticism” (Giovanni Marchini Camia, Filmmaker Magazine).