Toronto International Film Festival 2015: Jonás Cuarón's 'Desierto' Earns Special Presentation Prize

Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón’s son, Jonás, debuted his film “Desierto” last week at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it was very well received. So much so, it won the Special Presentation Prize, handed out by the International Federation of Film Critics. The movie talks about the many issues of Mexican border-crossing, starring Gael García Bernal, who plays a who portrays the role of a migrant fleeing from a U.S. vigilante. “Immigration is a part of life. We all come from immigrants,” said the actor in a Q&A at the film festival, reports Variety. The Mexican actor also stated that Cuarón's film pays homage “to all the people who make this journey.”

Although Cuarón took part in the writing of his father’s Oscar-winning “Gravity,” the film, which is in Spanish and English, was written by Gabriel García Márquez’s grandson, Mateo García and produced by Cuaron's father and uncle, Carlos Cuarón. And despite the movies timeliness with all the political controversies, most courtesy of Trump, Cuarón specified that he began working on the script six years ago. However, he added that the issue is “universal.” “There’s no such thing as an ‘illegal’ human being.”

While Cuarón’s other films include “Año Uña” (2007), “The Shock Doctrine” (2007) and “Aningaaq” (2014), this is his first full-length feature. The jury praised the movie “for using pure cinema to create a strong physical sensation of being trapped in a vast space and hunted down by hatred in its most primal form.” The Award puts Cuarón on the prestigious list of past winners, including Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard, Terrence Malick and Woody Allen.