Event

PURGATORIO: A Journey into the Heart of the Border

OAKUFF 2013 PRESENTS

A line in the sand becomes a division of us from them, an imagined barrier that leads to friction, conflicts, violence; it becomes a border. Taking us to the locations where such a line was drawn between the United States and Mexico, Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border combines a photographically breathtaking survey of the surreal topographies that manifest on both sides with a collage of intimate portraits of its inhabitants. Underscored by the film's rhythmic, counterpointed editing, the notion of a boundary emerges on all levels: the visual tension between beauty and suffering; the contrast of nature and industrial blight; reflections on the battle between good and evil, between darkness and light, between compassion and hatred. Director Rodrigo Reyes' masterful fusion of form and content is a sublime yet devastating tour of the liminal space between heaven and hell.