Screen Comment on Sin Nombre

By Nick Dawson On November 05, 2009

Screen Comment, the film website run by New York-based journalist Ali Naderzad, is a regular read here at FilmInFocus. It's always really nice for us when one of the sites we love writes about one of the films we love, and as a result it was  great to see Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre being covered by Naderzad and co.

Fukunaga's movie, which came out theatrically early in the year and is now out on DVD, is a film that received great reviews across the board, as well as winning Fukunaga the Best Director award at Sundance. Nevertheless, it was a film that flew under the radar for a few, including Screen Comment writer Saïdeh Pakravan, who titles her piece, "In Case You Missed It: Sin Nombre."

Here's an extract:

Critics call Cary Fukunaga, born of a Japanese father and American mother, raised in California, the director whom every one loves to hate. Imagine a gifted young man, barely out of film school at NYU, turning his thesis into a screenplay, having it produced by Focus, and showered with praise and awards—richly deserved one and all. Fukunaga says he never dreamed anything like this could happen. Before “Sin Nombre,” all he had under his belt was a short film about a number of illegal immigrants who die in a van in Texas. Captivated by the plight of the clandestine travelers from Central and North America, he himself made the trip several times, though in his case he could always hop off and go home to California. As he says in an interview, he had the luxury to leave. “It wasn’t my journey to make,” he adds.

You can read the entire article at Screen Comment.