Top 20 Alternative Picks for Cannes 2013: Amat Escalante’s Heli

Heli – Amat Escalante

Section: Main Competition

Buzz: Steadily guided by Cannes’ fest head honcho Thierry Fremieux, Amat Escalante receives a major big stage showing for his long-awaited third film (worth noting it was among the four hand-picked winners for the 2010 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards along with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Elena” and Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild“). Sangre (Un Certain Regard – 2005), his debut feature announced the helmer as an up-and-comer in Mexican cinema, while his home-invasion follow-up Los Bastardos divided up the critical mass when it showed once again in Cannes in 2008 (Un Certain Regard).

The Gist: In a small Mexican town, 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.