De La Calle

A young man takes a wrong turn down the lost highway of criminal delinquency in this powerful drama from Mexico. Rufino (Luis Fernando Pena) is a boy in his early teens growing up on the mean streets of Mexico City; his father is missing, and he's being raised by an adoptive mother who has little time for him. Instead, Rufino runs with a gang of youthful delinquents who support themselves with petty crime and seek solace in marijuana and sniffing glue, and while the boy is still an innocent deep inside, his circumstances have left him jaded beyond his years. When his guardian's boyfriend beings home a bag of cocaine one night, Rufino steals the drugs and tries to sell them, hoping to use the money to run away with his girlfriend Xochitl (Maya Zapata) who, even though she's not much older than Rufino, is already the mother of a child. As Rufino and Xochitl search for a better life, he also tries to learn what became of his father; Rufino is convinced he's still alive, even though nearly everyone else is certain he's dead. Luis Fernando Pena's performance in De La Calle earned the young thespian the Best Actor trophy at the 2001 Guadalajara Film Festival.