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Song Without A Name Photo: Beatriz Torres

When her newborn baby is stolen by health workers who pretended they were providing charitable care, Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), an indigenous Peruvian woman living in poverty, is ready to do anything to get her back. The odds are stacked against her until she meets journalist Pedro (Tommy Párraga), who is willing to work with her to expose the truth. This is Song Without A Name (Canción Sin Nombre) and it made a huge splash internationally, making director Melina León the first Peruvian woman ever to have her work screened at Cannes. Last week, as it became available in the UK, I discussed it with Melina, beginning by asking about the true story behind it.

“Yeah, it was inspired by a thing that took place in 1981. It happened to be there, the first major case in the headlines of the newspaper La Republica. And...

"My baby girl was stolen. I need to file a report." Film Movement has released an official US trailer for the Peruvian film Song Without a Name, originally titled Canción Sin Nombre, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The vintage B&w investigative drama is the feature directorial debut of a Peruvian filmmaker named Melina Leon. It's based on a true account of child trafficking uncovered by journalist Ismael Leon, father of the film's director. Georgina is a young woman from the Andes whose newborn daughter is stolen at a fake health clinic. Her desperate search for the baby leads her to the headquarters of a major newspaper, where she meets Pedro Campos, a lonely journalist who takes on the investigation with her. Starring Pamela Mendoza, Tommy Párraga, Lucio Rojas, Maykol Hernández, and Lidia Quipse. I really dig the look and feel of this, despite the very sad story it's telling.

Luxbox represents worldwide rights to first-time feature.

Melina Léon’s Peruvian Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection and child trafficking drama Song Without A Name (Cancion Sin Nombre) has landed a North American distribution deal with Film Movement.

The Cannes Golden Camera nominee and recent winner of the CineVision Award at the Munich Film Festival will open theatrically towards the end of this year followed by home entertainment and digital release. Film Movement brokered the deal with Luxbox.

Léon’s feature debut is inspired by events in her country in the 1980s, and centres on Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), a young woman from...

In a dingy clinic, a newborn child is whisked away from her exhausted mother, supposedly for routine health checks, and is never returned; in short order, the clinic vanishes into thin air too, leaving the stolen baby’s bewildered, impoverished parents with no recourse. The premise of “Song Without a Name” is at once fact-based and the stuff of shadowed, surreal nightmares, and Peruvian writer-director Melina León’s artfully affecting debut feature splits the difference: Earthy with social detail from a despairing period of Peru’s recent history, it’s also shot, scored and styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams.

The film’s wistful, elegiac tone, immaculate monochrome cinematography and compassionate focus on disenfranchised indigenous women will inevitably prompt surface-level comparisons to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” — which can hardly hurt “Song Without a Name’s” distribution prospects as it embarks upon what will likely be a gilded festival run,...

"We will find her. I promise." Luxbox has debuted a festival promo trailer for Peruvian film Canción Sin Nombre, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar next month. The title translates to Song Without a Name, and the film is the feature directorial debut of a Peruvian filmmaker named Melina Leon. It's based on a true account of child trafficking uncovered by journalist Ismael Leon, father of the film's director. Georgina is a young woman from the Andes whose newborn daughter is stolen at a fake health clinic. Her desperate search for the young child leads her to the headquarters of a major newspaper, where she meets Pedro Campos, a lonely journalist who takes on the investigation. The full cast includes Pamela Mendoza, Tommy Párraga, Lucio Rojas, Maykol Hernández, and Lidia Quipse. This vintage black & white look to this really adds to the storytelling. Will keep...

Madrid — Peru’s La Vida Misma and Paris-based sales agent Luxbox have dropped the first trailer and poster of Melina Leon’s “Canción sin nombre” (“Song Without a Name”), selected this week for the Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

Written by Leon and Michael J. White, “Song Without a Name” sums up some of ambitions and focus of the section under first-time artistic director Paolo Moretti: A first feature, a movie with a strong auteurist voice, and elements of genre in its slow-boiling thriller thrust and dashes of film noir.

“Song Without a Name” is lead produced by La Vida Misma, in co-production with Spain’s Mgc, Peru’s La Mula Producciones and Switzerland’s Bord Cadre, co-producers of “Monos” and “Divine Love,” well received at this year’s Sundance festival, and 2018 Directors’ Fortnight standout “Birds of Passage.”

Sophie Dulac Distribution, the French distributor of Whit Stillman’s “Love & Friendship...