Zambrano loves two things above all: playing American football and stealing cars. When he winds up in Mexico City's notorious Santa Martha penitentiary, "the world's toughest prison," he quickly earns a place on their famed football team, the Santa Martha Dogs, which also doubles as "4th Company," the prison's notorious crime syndicate.

Operating with the complicity of corrupt prison and police authorities and enforcing a strict honor code, the 4th Company has a tough job keeping everyone satisfied, and at one juncture must settle a debt in a football game between the Dogs and their police counterparts-a turn up that would seem to owe much to the old Robert Aldrich movie The Longest Yard, but which in fact comes direct from the historical record. The events depicted here took place in 1979, and for extra authenticity the filmmakers shot in the still-functioning prison, with inmates as extras.

Alive with eye-popping visuals and a high-energy soundtrack, 4th Company is both a fast-moving, enjoyably over-the-top popcorn movie, and a persuasive, even shocking denunciation of a prison system corrupt from top to bottom.

Winner: Best Actor and Special Jury Prize, Guadalajara 

Amir Galván Cervera – Director

Mitzi Vanessa Arreola – Director