The U.S.-Mexico co-production film Lupe Under the Sun / Lupe bajo el sol, Rodrigo Reyes’ follow up to his critically acclaimed documentary film Purgatorio, will have its World Premiere as an official selection in the World Fiction Competition at the 2016 edition of the L.A. Film Festival, running June 1-9. Filmed in a classic neorealist style, director Reyes’s deeply moving debut fiction feature, inspired by the life of his own grandfather, is at once an intimately drawn meditation on life’s missed chances and a tale of the universal struggles of immigrants.
Long estranged from his family in Mexico, migrant laborer Lupe finds relief from the backbreaking work of harvesting peaches in California’s Central Valley through beer-drenched camaraderie and a quiet love affair with fellow immigrant Gloria. Soon the stability of his daily routine begins to crack under the weight of a life scarred with regret and missed opportunities.
Playing with the limits between fiction and documentary, Reyes worked with non-professional actors, real farmworkers living in the heart of California, to tell a moving drama about an aging peach picker who wants to go back to his home in Mexico before he dies.
Rodrigo Reyes is an award-winning, Mexican-American filmmaker whose work has screened in nearly 50 film festivals around the world, including the LA Film Festival, Guadalajara International Film Festival and Documentary Fortnight at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, garnering rave reviews in the New York Times, Variety and other media outlets. Named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2013, he is an alumni of Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, California Humanities Council, NALIP, Film Independent and IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs.
Winner of Film Independent’s Canon Filmmaker Award and FICG in LA’s Post-Production Award, Lupe Under the Sun is an unforgettable film that heralds the arrival of an important new voice in American cinema.
