Tigers Are Not Afraid (Vuelven)

“Horrific and heartbreaking… Issa López, after this, should break into the boys club of great Mexican filmmakers”

Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS

“This is one terrific film, both tough and touching... two minutes in, I was under its spell"

Stephen King

Eleven-year-old Estrella’s mother has gone missing, the latest uninvestigated victim of neighbourhood cartels. Heartbroken and suddenly stuck on her own, Estrella ventures out into the streets, joining up with a gang of abandoned children. She soon finds herself thrust into the center of a vicious life-and-death battle with remorseless cartel members stalking the kids, as her world ignites with supernatural energies that bend her reality in ways both empowering and endangering.

An achingly moving film that explodes off the screen with poignancy and violence, TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID is a dark fairytale for a generation of children struggling against an unimaginably caustic reality. One in which death intertwines so firmly with life that neither fully begins or ends. Writer/director Issa López has made a singular work of extraordinary emotional force, a ghostly ballad for the orphans of cartel violence infused with magic realism and loveable characters, brought to life by a wise-beyond-their-years cast of remarkably gifted child actors. Her direction is passionately cinematic and inspired, told from the perspective of her adolescent protagonists, infusing the film with conjoined senses of wonder and fear that strike with enormous power.

In crime-ravaged cities where dozens vanish by the day, TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID uses fantastical devices to explore what happens to the many children whose parents suddenly disappear. You will be shaken to tears. Winner of 23 awards (and counting!) on the international festival circuit, TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID ranks among the great genre works of our time. Guillermo del Toro was so taken by it that he’s signed up to make a film with López. – Mitch Davis