Peru has announced today that it has selected Melina León’s debut feature Song Without a Name / Canción sin nombre as its Oscar candidate in the International Feature Film competition. The film, which had its world premiere at the Directors' Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival is looking to become the second Peruvian Academy Award nominee after Claudia Llosa’s nabbed a nomination in 2009 for her film The Milk of Sorrow.
Based on harrowing true events, Song Without a Name tells the story of Georgina, an indigenous Andean woman whose newborn baby is whisked away moments after its birth in a downtown Lima clinic—and never returned. Stonewalled by a byzantine and indifferent legal system, Georgina approaches journalist Pedro Campas, who uncovers a web of fake clinics and abductions, suggesting corruption rotting deep within Peruvian society.
Set in 1988 in a Peru wracked by political violence and turmoil, Melina León’s heart-wrenching first feature renders Georgina's story in gorgeous, shadowy black-and-white cinematography, "styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams" (Variety). Song Without a Name is a "Kafkaesque thriller" (The Hollywood Reporter) that depicts real-life, stranger-than-fiction tragedies with poetic beauty.
