Song Without a Name

Based on harrowing true events, SONG WITHOUT A NAME, just named Peru’s Official Oscar® Submission for Best International Film at the 93rd Academy Awards®, 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 Compos, who uncovers a web of fake clinics and abductions - suggesting a rotting corruption 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).

A 2019 Cannes Camera d’Or nominee, SONG WITHOUT A NAME, and winner of more than 30 international awards including “Best Film” at the Lima Latin American Film Festival and “Best Film by an Emerging Director” at the Munich Film Festival, the festival favorite period piece has garnered raves around the world. Guy Lodge of Variety wrote that the film “prompted surface-level comparisons to Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma…but León’s far more modestly scaled Latin American period piece is entirely its own film, meshing vérité-style technique with passages of dark, folkloric reverie... León’s world-building remains mesmerizing, steeped as it is in local lore, rituals and haunting traditional music.” And Teo Bugbee of The New York Times says Song Without a Name , “sets a dramatic mood with gorgeous black-and-white photography and an original guitar score…the alienation communicated by the movie’s images feels purposeful and striking…Eventually, León’s style does read as a coherent political statement. In her version of events, national tragedies don’t explode: They linger in the air, like a poisoned fog that won’t lift.”

My Thoughts

Song Without a Name is an emotional movie inspired by actual events. In a small town in Mexico, a woman named Georgina is expecting her first child. Though she will be a struggling single mother, she looks forward to the birth of her daughter. Seeking help, she goes to a clinic to assist with the birth. all seems well until she goes into labor and they whisk her newborn baby away. Refusing to stay silent, Georgina enlists the help of a local journalist to find her daughter and discover her baby isn't the only one whose been kidnapped.

This foreign film is an engrossing movie filled intrigue and emotion. The story is all the more powerful knowing it was based on real events. If you'd like to grab a copy of this DVD for your collection, you can find it in stores nationwide or online on Amazon

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