Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2013: #42. Amat Escalante’s Heli

Heli

Director: Amat Escalante
Writers: Escalante and Gabriel Reyes
Producer(s): Mantarraya
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: TBA

Information is so scarce on the production, yet I’ve been keeping tabs on Amat Escalante’s third film since it won the 2010 Sundance Institute and NHK award (same year as Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Elena” and Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild“). Escalante calls the film a cross between Sangre and Los bastardos.

Gist: Shot in various locations outside the city of Guanajuato, where most citizens work for an automobile assembly plant or the local drug cartel, Heli is confronted with police corruption, drug trafficking, sexual exploitation, love, guilt and revenge in the search for his father who has mysteriously disappeared.

Release Date: Third times a charm – this should be at the Cannes Film Festival once again. Followed by North American debuts at NYFF and/or AFI Film Fest.