By Eugenio Polgovsky
The most highly praised and awarded Mexican documentary in many years, THE INHERITORS by Eugenio Polgovsky immerses us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor.
The film takes us into the agricultural fields, where children barely bigger than the buckets they carry, work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, or beans, for which they are paid by weight. Infants in baskets are left alone in the hot sun, or are breast-fed by mothers while they pick crops.
THE INHERITORS also observes other labor routines, including the production of earthen bricks, cutting cane, gathering firewood, ox-plowing fields and planting by hand, and even more artistic endeavors such as carving wooden figures and weaving baskets to sell.
The indelible impression conveyed by THE INHERITORS, in which everyone-from the frailest elders to the smallest of toddlers-must work reveals how the cycle of poverty is passed on, from one generation to another.
Reviews
~ "A tough, rewarding glimpse into northern Mexico's hard-scrabble realities... This is awareness-raising documentary cinema at its most urgent and necessary." - The Hollywood Reporter
~ "Remarkable... a sometimes harrowing but also poetic and thoughtful film." - Screen Daily.com
~ "The harsh, relentlessly arduous conditions experienced by children toiling in the Mexican countryside are observed with striking vision and cinematic poetry." - Variety
~ "An impressive depiction of the bleak lives of Mexico's rural population... reminiscent of the early socio-critical works of directors such as Jean Rouch and Fernando Birri." - Berlin International Film Festival
Awards
~ Grand Prize, 2008 Festival of New Latin American Cinema
~ Best Documentary, 2009 Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences
~ Feisal Prize, 2009 Guadalajara Film Festival
~ Best Documentary, 2009 Festival de la Memoria
~ Best Documentary, Santiago International Documentary Festival
~ 2010 Award of Merit in Film, Latin American Studies Association
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