Carmín tropical follows Mabel as she returns to her hometown in her search for the murderer of her friend, Daniela. A journey through nostalgia, love and betrayal, in a town where the trans world once flourished, but has since fallen into decline.

In his second feature film, the Mexican director Rigoberto Pérezcano serves up a bittersweet thriller that takes us on a journey through a dark underworld of marginalisation and prejudice. Nostalgic, and hopeful, in spite of everything, Carmín tropical is an invitation to meditation and recognition, an impressive achievement that might have become a documentary, but instead takes the form of a well fleshed-out fiction, superbly performed, featuring complex, believable characters. What particularly stands out is Pérezcano’s recreation of the desolate atmosphere of Juchitlán, a coastal resort, fertile but sad, a ghost town where the only things that can palliate the enervating heat are hard liquor and silence.