Prayers for the Stolen Backdrop Blur
Prayers for the Stolen Poster

Prayers for the Stolen

"Find the light in the darkness."

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.

Top Cast

  • Ana Cristina Ordóñez

    Ana Cristina Ordóñez

    Ana (niña)

  • Marya Membreño

    Marya Membreño

    Ana (adolescente)

  • Blanca Itzel Pérez

    Blanca Itzel Pérez

    María (niña)

  • Giselle Barrera Sánchez

    Giselle Barrera Sánchez

    María (adolescente)

  • Camila Gaal

    Camila Gaal

    Paula (niña)

  • Alejandra Camacho

    Alejandra Camacho

    Paula (adolescente)

  • Mayra Batalla

    Mayra Batalla

    Rita

  • José Estrada

    José Estrada

    Margarito (niño)

  • Julián Guzmán Girón

    Julián Guzmán Girón

    Margarito (adolescente)

Overview

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.

Rating

7.6 / 10
190 Reviews
1 Popular

2 Reviews

  • badelf
    badelf
    7 Feb 12, 2023

    It seems like the English title was created just to pull at the heart strings - That was totally unnecessary. The acting is really impressive. We've spent a huge amount of time in Mexico (due to the pandemic). This story is a truth in some areas of Mexico. It is a heart-breaking, real-life, horror story. It is a fact that some villagers do not escape this horror.

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    7 Apr 16, 2024

    Yikes but this is quite a difficult film to watch. It's centred around three teenage girls who live amidst the poppy fields of Mexico. "Ana" (Maria Membreño) "Paula" (Alejandro Camacho) and "Maria" (Giselle Barrera Sánchez) try to live their lives as normally as they can, but the fact that their school teacher is leaving because he won't pay protection money to the drug pedlars gives us some indication of the society in which they live. Indeed, it's this teacher who raises the issue of a missing girl - and that enlightens us to the fact that once they reach a certain age, these young women have other "uses" and nobody dares speak out about it. The chronology flits between the current life of these three and their younger childhood and illustrates that for them, there is little hope of change unless they are prepared to leave - but that they don't want to do with out each other or their mothers (the fathers don't feature at all in this drama). The rather courageous role of motherhood is really well exemplified by Mayra Batalla's contribution as "Rita". A woman who treats her daughters first menstruation with a dread that the young girl does not yet appreciate the significance of. It's a beautifully photographed vicious circle, with the emphasis on vicious. There are attempts at government interventions, local troops stationed and helicopters depositing toxins on the flowers, but the thrust here from director Tatiana Huezo is of a cycle of depressing and dangerous inevitability that it is difficult to see a way out of. The three young actors perform evocatively here offering us quite emotional and poignant characterisations. They are not simply going to give up - but it's not that simple. Harrowing, yes, but it's clearly been written and presented offering hope for the girls and to raise some awareness of the fact that as long as the West keeps buying the stuff, these people will live in a modern day slavery that turns your stomach.

Trailers & Clips

Recommendations

Adú

In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.

Adú

6.9 2020