El Norte - The Criterion Collection

Release Date: 01/20/09

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It?s a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava?s groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called "a Grapes of Wrath for our time."

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Gregory Nava
New audio commentary featuring Nava
In the Service of the Shadows: The Making of "El Norte," a new video program featuring interviews with Nava, producer and co-writer Anna Thomas, actors Zaide Silvia Gutierrez and David Villalpando, and set designer David Wasco
Wall of Silence, a new short documentary by Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner, concerning the building of the wall along the U.S.- Mexico border
The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva, the 1972 award-winning student film by Nava
Gallery of Chiapas location-scouting photographs
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation

PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by novelist Hector Tobar and Roger Ebert's 1983 review of the film