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Mexico has picked Sundance Film Festival winner Sujo to represent the country at the 2025 Oscars in the Best International Feature category. The drama from Identifying Features directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez premiered at Sundance this year, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema. It is currently doing the festival tour and will screen in San Sebastian and the London Film Festival this fall.
The coming-of-age story focuses on the titular Sujo, the son of a small-town cartel sicario who is orphaned when his father is murdered as a traitor. Under constant threat of death — the cartels traditionally kill male heirs of assassinated members lest they grow up to avenge their fathers — Sujo goes into hiding in the mountains, living in isolation with only his aunts and two young cousins for company. But as a young man, Sujo, played by Identifying Features actor Juan Jesús Varela, drifts back into the world of crime and on a collision course with his father’s legacy.
Yadira Pérez, Alexis Varela, Sandra Lorenzano, Jairo Hernández and Kevin Aguilar also star in Sujo. Rondero and Valadez produced the film, alongside Diana Casarreal, Jewerl Keats Ross, Virginie Devesa, Jean-Baptiste Bailly-Maitre, and Nicolas Celis.
The Forge picked up North American rights to the movie and will do a limited release starting Nov. 29.
Mexico has scored 9 Best International Feature nominations and won once: With Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma in 2018. In the last 4 years, every Mexican submission — Lila Avilés’ Tótem, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, Tatiana Huezo’s Prayers for the Stolen, and Fernando Frias’s I’m No Longer Here — has made the Oscar shortlist but failed to be nominated.
The 2025 Best International Feature shortlist will be announced on Dec. 17. The nominations are set for January 17, 2025 and the winners of the 97th Oscars will be announced on March 2.
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