Sin Nombre

Sin Nombre Sin Nombre, loosely translated as “without name”, is an independent film released in 2009 under the skillful direction of Cary Fukunaga. Fukunaga, a film graduate from New York University, also attended a French university and carries a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz. During his studies and New York University, he made a short film titled Victoria Para Chino, a film about a group of immigrants who died in a refrigerated trailer when immigrating to America; The inspiration behind Sin Nombre came from that short film. In his first major production, Fukunaga continued his interest in the topic of immigration, and came up with the creation of Sin Nombre. The film follows both a young gangster of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, Casper, and young girl from Honduras, Sayra, on their difficult journey to America. Fukunaga’s overall reason for the film was to express the hardships Central American people face on their journey to America, in hopes that people could see immigration from a different light. The film is directed mainly towards citizens of America, Central America, and Mexico although it can spread to any area with controversial opinions of immigration. The constraints of the film include time, as the film lasted just 96 minutes, rating, the limited budget of an independent film, the dangerous filming locations in Central America and Mexico, and language— the film is spoken completely in spanish with english subtitles. These constraints were overcome, and the film went on to be nominated for 22 awards, winning 12 of those including multiple awards at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, perhaps the most prestigious awards in the independent film world. Fukunaga bravely delivers the powerful and eye-opening story of the journey experienced by Central Americans immigrating to America: One that has previously been pushed behind the curtains in today’s society. Fukunaga delivers his argument that immigrants should