Javier Sicilia

In the Mexican narco-war, thousands of mothers search for their missing sons and daughters. In Portraits of a Search, the stories of Natividad, Guadalupe and Margarita intertwine to convey the different forms of confronting the search and uncertainty: one turns to the FBI, another obtains the Nation´s president´s personal promise, and the other tries to return to her routines so as to save her grandson. A portrait of Mexico today.

The Mexican painter Francisco Goitia, feeling his death approaching, manages to make a memory of his life: the reunion with his country and his people, his permanent search for identity as a man and as an artist and his struggle against the demons of the body and his subsequent religious conversion.

In a town in Veracruz being buffeted by cold northerly winds, seven men and woman start out on paths that will change their lives. A well-intentioned Christian gives in to the temptation of a young widow: a mayor succumbs to his greed: an elderly lady adopts a young burn victim: a doctor breaks away from a past that had hardened her heart: an old priest comes and goes trying to understand and a lost poet rediscovers his capacity to love and write. All these passions come together in a yearning to give meaning to their lives.