La Tragedia de Macario (2006)—Mexico

Directed and written by Pablo Véliz, this film succeeds not because it is an excellent film, but because it does a sufficient job in humanizing an important political and ethical issue of our day— illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Macario is an illiterate laborer who loses his job when the farmer who employs him sells his land and fires all his workers. He's an eminently likable character, as is his lovely wife, and together they are tired of starvation wages. When by fate Macario comes into enough money, he and his friend Felipe decide to cross the border into San Antonio. They pay a "coyote" to take them across, but when they show up for the trip he herds a dozen of them into a locked and unventilated freight car. Tragedy awaits these passengers, the coyote, and even the Mexican farmer who sold his land. Based upon a true story. In Spanish with English subtitles.