Cary Fukunaga has achieved something remarkable with his directorial debut. He has made an exceptional film, but he also may have settled the ongoing debate between the merits of film school versus "real-life" moviemaking experience. Not satisfied with either/or, Fukunaga did both. He originally wrote and developed SIN NOMBRE as his thesis project at NYU, and then honed the script at the Sundance Writers’ Lab. But Fukunaga also spent the better part of two years researching his subject matter in Mexico and Central America, where he interviewed gang members (both in prison and on the street) and rode the tops of freight train cars along with hundreds of immigrants hoping to make it to America. For his dedication, Fukunaga was awarded the Best Director prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. SIN NOMBRE brilliantly combines the polish and craft of a superior education in filmmaking with the determined spirit and authenticity of a director whose story carries the weight of experience.

The film opens with a dull, droning hum, as the camera begins to slowly creep into a golden autumn forest--the sound and stubborn pace resemble a train groaning into motion, which is in fact what the film is about. Willy is fleeing from his former gang brothers, who are out for his blood. Accompanied by a father she barely knows, Sarya has left everything behind to find a mythic place called New Jersey. These two are strangers when they board the train in southern Mexico, but they will soon become the only thing that matters in each other’s lives. But this is not a love story: the inexorable roll of the train is the subject of the film, such that the shocking, violent events of the narrative eventually come to feel as if they were inevitable.