Sansón and Me
Film Synopsis
During his day job as a Spanish criminal interpreter in a small town in California, filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes met a young man named Sansón, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. With no permission to interview him, Sansón and Reyes worked together over a decade, using hundreds of letters as inspiration for recreations of Sansón’s childhood—featuring members of Sansón’s own family. The result is a vibrant portrait of a friendship navigating immigration and the depths of the criminal justice system, and pushing the boundaries of cinematic imagination to rescue a young migrant’s story from oblivion.
Screenings
Jun 27, 2023
Presented by Berkeley FILM Foundation
Oakland, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 25, 2023
Presented by Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall
Los Angeles, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 24, 2023
Presented by American Cinematheque
Los Angeles, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 23, 2023
Presented by Scripps College, Department of Spanish, Latin American & Caribbean Literatures & Cultures
Claremont, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Private Event
Mar 17, 2023 - Mar 23, 2023
6:45 PM
Presented by The Roxie
San Francisco, CA
Q&As with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes and special guests.
Mar 16, 2023
Presented by University of California Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism
Berkeley, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 15, 2023
6:15 PM
Presented by San Francisco State University, School of Cinema
San Francisco, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 14, 2023
Presented by Stanford University, MFA in Documentary, Institute for Diversity and the Arts & Center for Latin American Studies
Stanford, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 11, 2023
Presented by Watsonville Film Festival
Watsonville, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Mar 3, 2023 - Mar 9, 2023
Presented by BAM
Brooklyn, NY
Q&As with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes and special guests.
Feb 28, 2023
Presented by Harvard University Law School, Film Society
Cambridge, MA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Feb 15, 2023
Presented by Pitzer College, Media Studies
Claremont, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Private Event
Nov 20, 2022
Presented by Zanate Festival de cine documental mexicano
Colima, Mexico
Q&A with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Su Kim.
Nov 18, 2022
Presented by Bertha DocHouse
London, United Kingdom
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Nov 7, 2022
Presented by the International Documentary Association
Los Angeles, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Nov 5, 2022
Presented by San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco, CA
Q&A with filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes.
Oct 29, 2022
Presented by Firehouse
New York, NY
Q&A with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Su Kim.
Oct 23, 2022
Presented by Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia
Morelia, Mexico
Q&A with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Su Kim.
Oct 21, 2022
Presented by DocsMX
Mexico City, Mexico
Q&A with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Su Kim.
Jun 26, 2022
International Premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest
Sheffield, United Kingdom
Winner of the Best Film Award. Q&As with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Inti Cordera.
Jun 12, 2022
World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival
New York, NY
Q&As with filmmakers Rodrigo Reyes and Su Kim.
Take Action
Send Sansón a Postcard
Honor Sansón’s storytelling by writing to him with your own story or words of hope and inspiration. Complete a short form with your message, and we’ll work with the nonprofit Ameelio.org to print and send a physical postcard from you to Sansón free of charge.
Request a Speaker
Request a representative from the film to speak at your screening event!
Credits
Directed and Produced by Rodrigo Reyes
Produced by Su Kim
Story by Sansón Noe Andrade, Rodrigo Reyes, Su Kim
Executive Producers: Inti Cordera, Sally Jo Fifer, Lois Vossen, Sandie Pedlow
Director of Photography: Alejandro Mejía, AMC
Edited by Andrea Chignoli, Daniel E. Chávez Ontiveros
Story Consultant: Doris Baizley
Original Music by Jacobo Lieberman
Supervising Sound Editor & Re-recording Mixer: Ruy Garcia
CAST
Sansón – Adult played by Gerardo Reyes
Sansón – Child played by Antonio González Andrade
Sansón – Baby played by Miguel Andrade
Impact Campaign
Sansón and Me is a beautiful cinematic meditation on the systemic failures that drive the incarceration of young people, and an ideal springboard for understanding the extreme sentencing that disproportionately impacts BIPOC youth. Critically, the film illuminates a story greatly underrepresented in mainstream media: the devastating impact of incarceration on Latinx and immigrant communities in the United States.
Sansón’s creative participation and collaboration in the film is an innovative and inspiring model of narrative power, authorship and agency, raising essential questions about ethics and consent in storytelling about communities impacted by incarceration—whose stories get told by whom, how, and why? The film also interrogates the space of the cinema itself. Drawing parallels to the space of the prison, we are asked to confront our own limited perspective, empathy, and action as bystanders and audience members.
Represent Justice is partnering with Rodrigo Reyes, Su Kim, and Sansón Noe Andrade to launch an impact campaign for Sansón and Me. We will work to honor Sansón’s storytelling by sharing the film with others who are currently incarcerated, and with young people in communities impacted by mass incarceration. We will also embed the film in advocacy efforts to address the arrest-to-deportation pipeline, and the extreme sentencing of young people.