IXCANUL New Auteurs

A young Mayan woman lives with her parents on a coffee harvesting farm at the base of a volcano in the Guatemalan highlands. She is poised to enter an arranged marriage when everything is thrown into chaos. She becomes pregnant with a local boy’s child, a secret her determined mother desperately tries to cover up so the impending marriage will not fall apart and dash their hopes of a stable future. From there, Jayro Bustamante’s hypnotic debut feature takes a series of startling turns, each one more surprising and revealing than the next. With widescreen cinematography that captures the lush Guatemalan landscape and a brilliant cast of nonprofessional actors, IXCANUL evokes the films of Werner Herzog while finding an identity all its own. It is Guatemala’s first-ever submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar®. —Beth Hanna