Prayers for the Stolen

In a small Mexican town in the mountains of the state of Guerrero, Ana lives with her mother Rita. Ana's father is long gone; many of the men leave their families behind in the hope of a better life in the USA. Like many other mothers, Rita is on her own. After working in the opium poppy fields, she trains her daughter to recognize dangerous noises so that Ana can hear the black SUVs of the drug cartel in time. In case of emergency, Ana is supposed to hide in a secret hole in the ground behind the house. In addition, most of the girls have tomboyish hairstyles to reduce the risk of being kidnapped and enslaved. Together with her friends Paula and Maria, Ana roams the forest hunting snakes. They use an abandoned house as a secret meeting place. There they dress up as women. Together they have devised a game that strongly bonds them and strengthens and shapes their friendship: reading each other's minds. But the childlike innocence does not last long in this place, where a dark cloud of violence hovers over everything. In the following years, the violence increases at the hands of the drug cartels. The girls are now in puberty and thus more threatened than ever. One day, the black SUVs of the drug cartel return. Not all the girls make it to their hideouts in time this time. The villagers erect barricades and get ready to fight. Fire rages in the darkness of the night.