Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares)

Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares)

Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares), a film by Fernanda Valadez

Mexico/ Spain, 2020
Drama, 95 min, Color
Spanish, with English subtitles

US Virtual Cinema Premiere Friday, January 22nd, 2021

Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience and Screenplay Awards at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Gotham Award for Best International Feature.

Presented in partnership with Cinema Tropical.

Synopsis
Middle-aged Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez) has lost contact with her son after he took off with a friend from their town of Guanajuato to cross the border into the U.S., hopeful to find work. Desperate to find out what happened to him—and to know whether or not he’s even alive—she embarks on an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous journey to discover the truth. At the same time, a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) has returned to Mexico after being deported from the U.S., and eventually his path converges with Magdalena’s. From this simple but urgent premise, director Fernanda Valadez has crafted a lyrical, suspenseful slow burn, equally constructed of moments of beauty and horror, and which leads to a startling, shattering conclusion.

New York-based Cinema Tropical is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization that has become the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States. Founded in 2001 with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, Cinema Tropical brought U.S. audiences some of the first screenings of films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También.

Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, Cinema Tropical is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.