Knowing that the young, wide-eyed girl-passing-as-a-boy (Matilde Hernández Guinea) at the heart of Julio Hernández Cordón’s dystopian tale is named Huck hints at the allegorical nature of this tension-filled portrait of a land — Mexico — and a people ruled by fear. The time is deliberately left vague — the near future seems probable — but a title card informs us that, “Everything, absolutely everything, is run by the cartels.” In the desert setting, women and children, including Huck’s mother and sister, are disappeared or enslaved, many kept in cages. Huck and her father, Rogelio (Rogelio Sosa), wretched guardians of a baseball diamond used by cartel bosses, have thus far escaped that fate. This might change, however, when the drug-addicted Rogelio kills a cartel flunkie… Cordón’s vision of Huck as an innocent mired in Hell has been likened by many to a slow-burn Fury Road, and his sure-handed, stylish creation of Huck’s apocalyptic world more than warrants the comparison.

In competition for the CV Cine Award.