General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Sujo

Sujo is a 2024 Mexican drama film directed, written, and produced by Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, following the orphaned son of a murdered cartel gunman from childhood to young adulthood. A co-production of Mexico, the United States, and France, it premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Directors and writers	Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, their third feature together¹^•³
Premiere	Sundance Film Festival, January 2024, World Cinema Dramatic competition²
Top award	World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, Sundance 2024²
Runtime and genre	2h 6m drama, in Spanish⁴
Main cast	Juan Jesús Varela (Sujo), Yadira Pérez (Nemesia), Alexis Varela (Jai), Sandra Lorenzano (Susan), Jairo Hernández (Jeremy), Kevin Aguilar (Sujo as a child)⁵
Critical score	93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 46 reviews (43 fresh, 3 rotten), average rated review 7.10/10⁴
Later honors	Best Film at the 2024 Morelia Film Festival; at the 2025 Ariel Awards it won Best First Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Revelation Actor⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Story

When a sicario, a cartel gunman, is murdered in a small town in Michoacán, western Mexico, he leaves behind his beloved four-year-old son, Sujo, who is left an orphan and in danger.⁴^•¹ Sujo narrowly escapes his father's fate with the help of his aunt Nemesia (Yadira Pérez), an independent woman perceived by many in the community as a witch because of her sensitivity to the world of dreams, and grows up with her in the isolated countryside amid hardship, poverty, and the constant peril attached to his identity.⁴^•⁸

As a teenager, a rebelliousness awakens in Sujo and, like a rite of passage, he joins the local cartel. As a young man he attempts to make his life anew away from the violence of his hometown, but when his father's legacy catches up with him he comes face to face with what seems to be his destiny.⁴ The film is divided into four episodes: the first three center on the arid rural landscape of Tierra Caliente in Michoacán, and the last moves to Mexico City.⁹ The character is played at different ages by Kevin Aguilar and Juan Jesús Varela, and the story is told through the eyes of various characters in his life.⁵^•¹⁰

The film is dedicated "a los huérfanos de este país en llamas" (to the orphans of this country in flames), and its central question is the inheritance of violence: whether a son of the crime world can break with what seems written for him.⁹ Education, through a teacher named Susan (Sandra Lorenzano), an Argentine professor based in Mexico City, becomes the film's channel for the idea of free will against the determinism of fate.⁵^•⁹

Origins and production

The directors. Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez are Mexican writer-directors and producers who have collaborated for over fifteen years, making three short films and the features The Darkest Days of Us (2017) and Identifying Features (2020). Identifying Features won the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance 2020, along with prizes at San Sebastián, Zurich, and Thessaloniki and a Gotham Award for Best International Film. Sujo is their third feature together.¹^•³

Where the idea came from. The concept arose while the two were in preproduction for Identifying Features in Guanajuato, where long casting and location processes brought them into contact with young men marked by emigration, violence, and a severe shortage of opportunities; Rondero began writing Sujo at night during that period.¹¹ A further inspiration was Levantones (Taken), a book of chronicles by the Sinaloa journalist Javier Valdez, who was himself later murdered, which recorded with humanity the accounts of victims and perpetrators, women, men, and children caught in cartel violence. The directors asked themselves how many orphans the crisis had left in Mexico, and what awaited the children of those who took part in the violence.¹² Rondero has also cited Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure as a deep influence, and the name Sujo comes from a Mongolian legend Valadez read as a child, a story of friendship between a boy and a horse.¹²

The pandemic lengthened the film's financing and development, and during that period Rondero composed music on synthesizers and piano that became linked to the story and its emotional landscapes.¹³ The two directors shared the editing, generally with Valadez making the first cuts and Rondero refining them, and they also worked with editor Susan Korda.¹³^•¹⁴ A pre-production workshop for the young cast was led by casting director Lizeth Rondero, Astrid's sister and a theater actress.¹⁰

Reception and awards

At its Sundance world premiere the jury awarded Sujo the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, calling it "a breathtaking film that created its own unique cinematic vocabulary" with "extraordinary cinematography that captured a lyrical intensity of darkness, nature and aspiration."² The film went on to win Best Film at the Morelia Film Festival in October 2024.⁶ At the San Sebastián festival it won the Cooperación Española Award, and at the Toulouse Latin America Film Festival it won the Rail d'Oc and the Prix Cine+; IMDb records 19 wins and 47 nominations overall.¹⁵ At the 2025 Ariel Awards, Mexico's film prizes, Sujo was the night's big winner, taking Best First Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Revelation Actor for José Alberto Patiño, with Yadira Pérez winning Best Supporting Actress.⁷^•¹⁵

Critics responded strongly. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds 93% on the Tomatometer from 46 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10 among reviews that include ratings.⁴ Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com gave it 3.5 of 4 stars, calling it "an evocative film guided by magic and compassion," and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it 3 of 5, finding it "a strongly intended and conceived film, but without the passion of the earlier work."⁴ In Screen Daily, Wendy Ide described "a satisfying and impressively acted drama," and Carlos Aguilar's A-grade IndieWire review called it "a work of tremendous lyrical potency," arguing it showed the duo standing among those soon to be regarded as the new masters of Mexican cinema.¹^•¹⁶ Sergio Burstein of the Los Angeles Times noted that the film avoids empty romanticism, unnecessary aesthetic embellishment, and absolute answers.⁴

Availability

In the United States the film can be streamed free with ads on Fandango at Home and Plex, rented or purchased on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home, and streamed free on Kanopy.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Coming-of-age films › Coming-of-age films released 2010 onward

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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