Lake Los Angeles

The final installment of Mike Ott’s desert trilogy again shows America from a foreigner’s POV. Like thousands before him, Francesco left his family in Cuba to seek a better life in the US. He’s a day laborer, whose home serves as a way-stop for illegal immigrants. That’s how 10-year-old Cecilia, a silent girl with no guardian, finds her way to his abode. Thrown into a hostile world, the two tie the threads of friendship, though the director keeps things from being overly cinematically simple. The California landscape acts as one of the film’s leading characters thanks to the cool images by DOP Mike Gioulakis. Abandoned spaces that once strained to be luxury resorts only highlight Francisco and Cecilia’s alienation. Unlike in Ott’s other films, the struggle here is not for the plush American Dream, it is the struggle for survival.