Diego Mondaca

Maifrens

The tecuas want to make a gang movie. They skip classes to be able to film. La Muñequita has left her gang because La Diabla wanted to introduce some girls who would spoil the vibe. El Man de la Villa is pissed. Robberies and fights, things are getting out of hand. The filmmakers are scared.

When They Left

When the colourful ice-cream van rides through the deserted streets of the village, there are no children trailing behind it. In Plazuela, a peaceful hamlet lost in a mountainous region of Ecuador, only a handful of old ladies remain, who are all widows. In the gloom of their houses, photos of those who are gone hang on walls: husbands who have passed away a few years earlier, children gone to work in the big cities or abroad, and grandchildren who have grown up far away from them.