Innocent Voices focuses on Chava (Carlos Padilla), an 11-year-old boy who helps his single mother, Kella (Leonor Varela), raise his siblings in war-torn El Salvador and faces forced conscription into the government army when he turns 12. Chava feels the pangs of first love and struggles with the prospect of carrying a gun and fighting against rebels. Luis Mandoki, a Mexico-born director who’s best known for his Hollywood efforts White Palace, Message in a Bottle and When a Man Loves a Woman, has crafted a profoundly moving film here that’s also written and acted with impressive skill and sensitivity. Innocent Voices unfolds on a broad canvas but maintains an air of intimacy, which enhances its dominant theme of familial love in trying times.

Shelf Talk: A favorite on the film-fest circuit, Innocent Voices won Best Feature Film awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, the River Run IFF and the Seattle IFF. It also received the prestigious Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America. The film should be able to hold its own with the best foreign-language releases of recent years and could become a minor classic within the foreign-film niche. Play it up that way.