Heroic

When asked why he wants to enrol in Mexico’s Heroic Military College, Indigenous 18-year-old Luis says, ‘it’s an opportunity to be someone in life’. Inspired less by idealism than a desire to support his girlfriend and sick mother, Luis is soon confronted by the brutal culture underpinning the institution. Zonana tells a very different story from the one we often see in movies. Instructor Sgt Sierra doesn’t want to break Luis’s will by the usual methods. This smiling psychopath instead shows favouritism, making Luis a bystander who dares not intervene. Stunning surreal sequences illustrating Luis’s inner torment punctuate this incendiary statement about perverted patriotism and toxic male power structures.