Following its successful premiere at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival—where it was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize for the best science or technology-themed film—the Mexican-American co-production Son of Monarchs (Hijo de monarcas) is set to continue its festival run with upcoming stops at the San Francisco Film Festival (SFFILM), Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), and the Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF), during the month of April.
Son of Monarchs, the second feature film from French-Venezuelan director and biologist Alexis Gambis boasts an impressive international cast including Tenoch Huerta (Narcos, Güeros), Alexia Rasmussen, Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez, Noé Hernández, Paulina Gaitán, William Mapother, andAngélica Aragón.
Hailed as a “poignant story of transformation” (IndieWire), the film follows the return of Mendel (Huerta in an outstanding performance), a Mexican biologist living in New York, to his hometown—nestled in the majestic monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán—after his grandmother’s death. The journey forces him to confront past traumas and reflect on his hybrid identity, sparking a personal and spiritual metamorphosis.
Mirroring the annual, instinctual flight of the monarch butterfly across the Americas, the ravishing Son of Monarchs presents a different kind of immigration story that’s at once a welcome departure from standard narratives and a moving innovation of the form.
