Oscars 2025: Mexico selects ‘Sujo’ as Best International Feature Film entry
Mexico’s has selected “Sujo” as the country’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. The movie written and directed by Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and will hit theaters November 29.
After a cartel gunman from a small Mexican town is murdered, Sujo (Kevin Uriel Aguilar Luna/Juan Jesús Varel), his beloved four-year-old son, is left an orphan and in danger. Sujo narrowly escapes death with the help of his aunt who raises him in the isolated countryside amidst hardship, poverty, and the constant peril associated with his identity.When he enters his teens a rebelliousness awakens in him, and like a rite of passage, he joins the local cartel. As a young man, Sujo attempts to make his life anew, away from the violence of his hometown. However, when his father’s legacy catches up with him, he will come face-to-face with what seems to be his destiny.
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Mexico has received nine Oscar nominations for Best International Feature Film: “Macario” (1960), “The Important Man” (1961), “Tlayucan” (1962), “Letters from Marusia” (1975), “Amores Perros” (2000), “The Crime of Father Amaro” (2002), “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), “Biutiful” (2010) and “Roma” (2018). “Roma” was the first and only Mexican film to prevail so far, winning two additional 2019 Oscars for director and cinematographer Alfonso Cuarón.
“Sujo” is the third feature collaboration (second as directors) from Rondero and Valadez. In a press release they stated, “When we were working on our previous film ‘Identifying Features,’ we came across a particular book of chronicles called ‘Levantones’ (the taken) written by the great Mexican journalist Javier Valdez, himself later a victim of violence. It wasn’t a special story that caught our attention but more an atmosphere that he managed to share with deep humanity and utmost respect: real accounts of both victims and perpetrators, women, men and children, all caught for one reason or the other in the drug cartel violence that runs rampant in Mexico. Deep within, there is also the inspiration of ‘Jude’ the obscure by Thomas Hardy, which is one of Astrid’s most beloved books. The stories of orphans in turbulent times are a way to see ourselves finding understanding under the most hopeful light. The name Sujo comes from a Mongolianl egend that Fernanda read as a child, a story of friendship between a boy and a horse. So as is usual with us, the project was born of an encounter of ideas, memories, and things we love. All of it lead us to ‘Sujo,’ a story of an orphan growing up in a Mexico stricken by drug violence, poverty, and high hopes, a tale of a young man fighting against repetition and finding his real self.”
Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez are Mexican writer-directors and producers. Through their collaboration for over 15 years, they have produced two feature lengths, “The Darkest Days of Us” (2017) and “Identifying Features” (2020) as well as three short films, “Of This World” (2010), “In Still Waters” (2011) and “400 Bags” (2014).
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