Latinx Filmmaker John Gutierrez Debuts ‘Sons of the Sea’ at CineQuest Film Festival

Emerging Mexican-American filmmaker John Gutierrez is set to showcase his debut feature, Sons of the Sea, at the CineQuest Film & Creativity Festival – the annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California.

The film draws its inspiration from El Mechudo a Mexican folktale which was also the force behind John Steinbeck’s novella ”The Pearl’. It tells the story of a young Native American man – the greatest, most celebrated pearl free diver in all of Baja California. However, in Gutierrez’s refashioning of the story, we find ourselves in Cape Town, South Africa where the native Californian director is now based.

“The climate and the natural landscape felt deeply familiar, but so too did the people,” says Gutierrez. “The mestizo population of Cape Town reminded me in so many ways of my own Californian Mexican family and community. The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to explore this unexpected familiarity, this sense of a connection between the two places through a film.”

Sons of the Sea follows Gabriel, a gifted but reclusive teenager from a poor fishing community, who is pressured by his older brother to steal two bags of ocean treasure – abalone – from a dead man. Tracked by a corrupt government official, the boys’ mission to sell the goods takes them through mountainous region of the fabled Cape of Good Hope, and into a fight for their own survival.

“I wanted to tell an intimate story about brothers, about leaving home, about the struggle to survive ones own and one’s family’s history,” Gutierrez concludes.

Here at ShowBizCafe.com we are always heartened to see more Latinx filmmakers given the opportunity to share compelling stories through their unique perspectives.

The CineQuest Film & Creativity Festivals runs through March 30th and you can purchase tickets to virtually watch Sons of the Sea here

‘Sons of the Sea’