Song Without a Name (Canción sin nombre)

Directed by Melina León
Film Movement
2019
97 Minutes
Peru, Spain, USA
Spanish, Quechua
Drama, Thriller, Latin American
Not Rated
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Based on harrowing true events, SONG WITHOUT A NAME 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 Campas, 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). SONG WITHOUT A NAME is a "Kafkaesque thriller" (The Hollywood Reporter) that unflinchingly depicts real-life, stranger-than fiction tragedies with poetic beauty.

Director & Cast

  • Director: Melina León
  • Starring: Pamela Mendoza
  • Starring: Tommy Párraga
  • Starring: Lucio Rojas

Where to Watch

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Trailer

Photos

Reviews

  • "The premise of “Song Without a Name” is at once fact-based and the stuff of shadowed, surreal nightmares, and Peruvian writer-director Melina León’s artfully affecting debut feature splits the difference: Earthy with social detail from a despairing period of Peru’s recent history, it’s also shot, scored and styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams. The film’s wistful, elegiac tone, immaculate monochrome cinematography and compassionate focus on disenfranchised indigenous women will inevitably prompt 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, as its characters’ investigation of a single kidnapping spirals into a heady vortex of institutional corruption. León’s world-building remains mesmerizing, steeped as it is in local lore, rituals and haunting traditional music. Strains of Andean charango meld with the more contemporary ambient textures of Pauchi Sasaki’s score, while Briones’ imagery is a constant marvel, whether finding the poetry in hailstones bouncing off asphalt or silhouetting Georgina’s daily, mountainous commute in long shot, like storm-blown frames of shadow theater. "
    Guy Lodge, Variety
  • "Melina León's bold debut feature is a Kafkaesque thriller of crime and corruption that tells a stranger-than-fiction true story revolving around stolen babies in 1980s Peru. With gorgeous monochrome visuals and rich musical layers, the film is evidence of a strong new directorial voice, ear and eye. Song Without a Name is above all an exquisite audiovisual experience. Leon and producer-cinematographer Inti Briones frame their sumptuous monochrome vistas in a boxy 4:3 format, partly to summon memories of TV and newspapers in 1980s Peru, but this device also creates a sublimely alien silent-movie mood at times. Their geometrically precise shot-framing is masterfully done, elevating even sacks of potatoes and tumbledown shacks into high art. The drone-heavy score by Peruvian avant-garde composer Pauchi Sasaki, a sometime protege of Philip Glass, provides elegant sonic and emotional counterpoint to the lusty Andean folk ballads and traditional lullabies that Leon weaves into this melancholy memorial to dark times."
    Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter
  • "This accomplished first feature from Melina León is based on harrowing real events; León’s father was one of the journalists who investigated the case. There are similarities here with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma which go beyond the striking black and white photography. Both films deal with social hierarchies in Latin American countries which divide the population along racial lines; both feature wrenching depictions of interrupted motherhood. "
    Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
  • "This monochrome gem from Peru traces an impoverished mother’s heartbreaking search for her kidnapped newborn daughter, based on true events. The film’s colour scheme and setting in a Latin American country’s political crisis, as well as its graceful filming style, have raised inevitable comparisons to Alfonso Cuáron’s Oscar-winning Roma. But perhaps a woman, Melina León, in the director’s seat, gives this an edge in what has been a banner year for female filmmakers at Cannes."
    Ed Frankl, Little White Lies
  • "León's direction is impressive and, enhanced by an eerie, avant-garde score by Pauchi Sasaki, a tale of personal and national melancholy is crafted. "
    Katie Goh, The List
  • "...haunting.... The racism and exclusion addressed here remain pertinent issues. The power of León’s work lies in the way that she explores these themes without ever taking her finger off the pulse of the narrative. "
    Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film
  • "Song Without a Name is a beautifully shot and viscerally acted drama capturing one of modern Peru’s most divisive epochs. "
    Carmen Paddock, One Room with a View
  • "[T]his film is more a poetic tone poem, a Liszt “Les Préludes” compared to Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” and should be enjoyed by an intelligent, patient audience."
    Harvey Karten, Shock Ya!
  • "Song Without a Name captures the human and the political with distinctive formal style, and reveals León as an inspired writer-director. Her film is a chant made of alluring images, giving voice to a tragically unsung lullaby."
    Carlos Aguilar, Americas Quarterly
  • "his feature debut from Peruvian film-maker Melina Léon, first shown in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at last year’s Cannes film festival, is beautifully shot in black and white. It is an intimately painful and quite terrifying drama set in the late 1980s – the era of Peru’s Shining Path terrorist insurgency – and drawn from real life."
    Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Winner
Best Film
Stockholm Int'l. Film Festival
Winner
Best Cinematography
Stockholm Int'l. Film Festival
Winner
New Voices New Visions Award
Palm Springs Int'l. Film Festival
Winner
Best Director
Thessaloniki Film Festival
Winner
CineVision Award
FilmFest Munich
Winner
Four Awards
Lima Int'l Film Festival
Winner
FIPRESCI Prize
Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal
Winner
IFJA Best Int'l. Directorial Debut
Heartland Film Festival
Winner
Special Mention, Int'l Competition Jury
Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal
Nominated
Golden Camera
Cannes Film Festival
Official Selection
Sydney Int'l Film Festival
Official Selection
Zurich Film Festival
Official Selection
Jerusalem Film Festival
Official Selection
Melbourne Int'l Film Festival
Winner
Excellence in the Art of Filmmaking
Tallgrass Film Festival
Winner
Outstanding Female Filmmaker
Tallgrass Film Festival