by Alex Billington
February 14, 2023
Source: YouTube
"Do you know why there is no peace? Because the devil has got the whole world in his hands." The Cinema Guild has revealed an official trailer for an indie documentary called Sansón and Me, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival last year. The acclaimed film also played at tons of other festivals, including Sheffield DocFest, DocsMX, Hot Springs Doc Festival, Denver Film Festival, and Cameraimage in Poland. After meeting this boy while working as an interpreter, director Rodrigo Reyes (also of 499) decided to make a film about him. Made over a decade, it tells the story of a young immigrant's path from coastal Mexico to a life sentence for murder in California. Sansón is now in a prison in the US, with no parole. With no permission to interview him, Sansón and Reyes worked together using hundreds of letters as inspiration for recreations of Sansón's childhood, featuring members of Sansón's own family. Reviews describe it as "an ever-engaging, innovative and moving treatment of race, class, and the criminal-justice system." See below.
Here's the official US trailer (+ poster) for Rodrigo Reyes' doc Sansón and Me, from YouTube (via TFS):
During his day job as a criminal interpreter in a small town in California, filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes met a young man named Sansón, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. With no permission to interview him, Sansón and Reyes worked together over a decade, using hundreds of his letters as inspiration for recreations of Sansón's childhood—featuring members of Sansón's own family. The result is a remarkably vibrant portrait of a friendship navigating immigration and the depths of the criminal justice system and pushing the boundaries of cinematic imagination to rescue a young migrant's story from oblivion. Sansón and Me, also known as Sansón y Yo in Spanish, is directed by acclaimed Meixcan filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes, director of the films Purgatorio, Lupe Under the Sun, and 499 previously, as well as a few other shorts. It's produced by Su Kim. This initially premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival last year and it played at the DocsMX Festival in Mexico City. The Cinema Guild debuts Sansón and Me in select US theaters on March 3rd, 2023. For info, visit BAM's official site.