Austin filmmaker David Blue Garcia’s debut feature redefined the cross-border revenge drama by shifting the perspective from the Hollywood norm of the white rancher to Tejano farmers of the region. The Harlingen native called the Rio Grande Valley “a transitional place between the U.S. and Mexico. It felt like you’re between worlds.” In blue-eyed farmworker Javi (Patrick Mackie) he sums up that divide: Hispanic to his American friends but a güero to his Mexican friends. Caught between cultures and headed toward a bloody, bleak showdown with the hired guns of a mob boss (a chilling Emma Perez-Trevino), his story becomes the definitive Western for our times. – Richard Whittaker
