Aaron Schock

La Laguna

Set within the rainforests of southern Mexico, La Laguna tells the story of a Mayan boy's remarkable journey from childhood to adolescence. While Yu'uk and his younger brother José enjoy a childhood of uncommon freedom in the jungle, Yu'uk's family's problems begin to mount and leaving his village - and his beloved little brother - may be his family's only hope.

Circo

Tino Ponce operates Circo Mexico, which journeys across the Mexican countryside in search of paying customers. Wanting to please his father and continue the family business, Ponce has recruited his young children as performers while laboring night and day to maintain the circus's faltering financial fortunes. But a growing resentment brewing within his wife about their hardscrabble existence suggests troubles on the horizon. While documenting the brutal regimen of circus life, Circo also peels back the curtain on the Ponce family's inner dynamics, revealing generational divides and money worries that threaten to tear apart a marriage. Buttressed by indie-rock band Calexico's evocative score, Schock's film observes this family drama with a sympathetic but clear-eyed view of a vanishing way of life. And because Circo refuses to be sentimental in its handling of the material, the story's twists become all the more poignant