Film Archive

Jahr

International Competition 2022
Filmstill The Invisible Frontier
The Invisible Frontier
Mariana Flores Villalba
On an island paradise in the Pacific, Mexican military personnel are on duty. Nothing happens. And yet they can’t forget the violent reality of their country.
Filmstill The Invisible Frontier

The Invisible Frontier

La frontera invisible
Mariana Flores Villalba
International Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Mexico
2022
84 minutes
Spanish
Subtitles: 
English

On an uninhabited island off the Mexican Pacific coast, members of the army do their uneventful duty. The film watches drills and everyday routines, but mainly the breaks which they spend playing board games in the shade of trees, in hammocks, swimming, flying kites or doing karaoke. The peaceful environment, however, does not hide the violent reality of their country which they are always confronted with, even out here.

In this paradisiacal seeming island landscape, the life marked by gang wars which these young men and women escape for an indeterminate time is visible only in metaphorical images, for example when the calm ocean surges up or when an octopus caught at the beach is slaughtered with bare hands. But in the conversations, the self-descriptions of the military men and women, everything revolves around the reality they grew up in: the brief moment that determines which side you’re on, the constant game of hide-and-seek, kin liability, the cruel consequences of wrong decisions. In her first feature-length documentary film, which is carried by the tension between the visible and the invisible, Mariana Flores Villalba wisely chose not to show the event but its effect.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mariana Flores Villalba
Cinematographer
Claudia Becerril Bulos
Editor
Astrid Rondero, Mariana Flores Villalba
Producer
Carlos Hernández, Gabriela Gavica Marrufo
Co-Producer
Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, A.C., Imcine Foprocine
Sound
Eduardo Hernández, Israel Hernández, Adriá Campany, José Luis “Checho” Bravo
Score
Federico Schmucler
Nominated for: Prize of the Interreligious Jury, FIPRESCI Prize