Coming to the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal on July 30th is an interesting film called Kidnap Capital. Directed by Felipe Rodriguez (in his first feature-length as director) and shot mostly in Ontario, Kidnap Capital takes on the subject of human trafficking, and illegal migrants who try to get into the U.S. the easy way, but find themselves stuck in drop houses instead.
The film stars Johnathan Sousa as Manolo and Michelle Arvizu as Elena, his pregnant wife, two Mexicans who want to cross into the U.S. across the border. But the only way of getting in is relying on smugglers — which is a dangerous move. The human smugglers promptly take the migrants’ money and confine them in a drop house while trying to extort more from them. Manolo has to team up with the other people in the drop house and help them fight for their freedom.
Rodriguez says, “For my first feature film as a director, I wanted to tell a story that I was passionate about. Feeding from my first-hand experiences with illegal Central American migrants while filming Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary some years ago, I was able to make Kidnap Capital as ‘real’ as possible. I felt the topic of human trafficking and the tragic drop house phenomenon was in need of more public awareness, especially in my home country of Canada.”
