Sundance 2026: The Huntress (La Cazadora)
By the time writer/director Suzanne Andrews Correa’s feature-length debut, “The Huntress (La Cazadora),” ends, it’s easy to consider how a documentary could cover the same subject matter. Not that it would be better than this riveting narrative feature, but it could certainly expand on it in more detail, because watching this will definitely pique your curiosity. Based on actual events that have occurred in Ciudad Juárez, a place known for its violence against women, many of them who wind up missing or dead, their bodies found in shallow graves in the Chihuahuan Desert, near the U.S./Mexico border.
“The Huntress” is named after its protagonist, Luz (a superb Adriana Paz, “Emilia Perez”), the primary character we follow, a fortysomething who introduces us to the violence committed against women in Juárez. Like many women in her village, she works at one of the local maquiladoras, tech factories owned by a U.S. company. The women are required to take at least two buses to get to work, which are often the site of attacks. If the women are not mugged, raped, or battered by the bus drivers, then something similar will happen to them when they are on the streets at night. They are even questioned in broad daylight while walking around.
As the film opens, we find a group of women anxiously waiting in the darkness on the side of an unlit road. As they hear the buses approaching, their concern increases because they know that the transportation to their jobs exposes them to predators. While they have spoken out about their plight, they have received indifferent responses from authorities. The truth surrounding these crimes against poor women is obviously not a concern.
From there, we transition to a similar bus ride, one that travels during the bright daylight. Rather than take her usual bus route to the assembly plant, Luz boards a different one, armed with a gun and disguised in a long platinum blonde wig. Instead of getting fully on board, she positions herself at the entrance to the bus, aiming her gun at the driver. She shakily holds the gun and fires multiple times. The passengers are shocked as the shooter flees on foot, making her way to a public bathroom where she vomits and scrubs the spattered blood from her face. This was a planned attack after the man she killed had recently raped one of her co-workers, 17-year-old Clara (Leidi Gutiérrez), whose face still shows signs of her attack.
Luz collects herself and manages to return to work, claiming she was delayed because of a shooting on her bus route. In no time, local news quickly begins spouting an official story about the bus driver’s killing that has nothing to do with the women. The American managers who run her plant arrange for a local police detective, Rosales (Guillermo Alonso), to question employees about the shooting. He’s a smug character who uses his position to intimidate, and it becomes clear his posture is representative of a system that has already made up its mind about the suspects in question.
The first time he questions Luz is at work, but the second time, when Rosales makes an unannounced visit to her home, where she lives with her 14-year-old daughter Alejandra “Ale” (Jennifer Trejo), is less an interview and more a malicious home invasion. The most unsettling scene of the film occurs during this house call, when Rosales advances on Ale in front of her mother in an extremely uncomfortable manner.
Andrews Correa purposely emphasizes the dynamic between Luz and Ale, even giving specific focus to the teenager, introducing her doing normal teen girl things. Ale is first seen playing hooky from school with her BFF (Suri Gutiérrez) as they shop for quinceañera dresses. It’s a right-of-passage moment, complete with glittering layers of crinoline, as a joyful vision of innocence is depicted. Ale’s innocence reaffirms her mother’s protectiveness, given that Luz is well aware of what can happen in this environment. It’s hinted at that Luz’s own assault occurred a year earlier, something that she’s hidden from her Ale, in an attempt to preserve her innocence and purity as long as possible. It definitely makes you wonder if that’s a good decision, given the climate they live in.
There’s a parallel story included here, that of Ximena (Teresa Sanchez), Luz’s peer, whose daughter is missing and presumed dead. She’s involved in search parties that include other mothers looking for potential remains of their lost children in the desert. This character serves as a symbol of the issue at hand and lacks a more in-depth story.
“The Huntress (La Cazadora)” is a compelling, well-observed drama that will leave you curious about the real-life details that unfolded in Ciudad Juárez in 2013. That was the summer of 2013 (20 years after the victims’ bodies were first discovered), a woman who called herself Diana, Hunter of Bus Drivers, shot and killed two drivers at point-blank range. Her true identity remains unknown, and this film conjectures, affectingly, about who she might be and, in turn, tells a story few are aware of.
RATING: ***
