Zagreb Film Festival

Special Mention-Full Length Film went to ‘The Desert Within’ by Rodrigo Pla,
“…because of scale, inventiveness and surprising maturity with which this first time film maker has embraced a powerful and epic tale of a soul’s journey to redemption. The grittiness of the world that he portrays and the hardship that these characters endure is compelling and has struck a chord with us...”

Rodrigo Pla's "The Desert Within" ("Desierto Adentro") is a powerful tale about the obsessive pursuit of redemption. The movie has epic character, in which it issues faith and mainstream conscience presented with such dynamics and intensity. There are frequent religious references in the film but not really religion. In this film Plá brings spiritual intensity, leaving sense of the powers of deep faith. At the end, this ambitious work, this tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions Pla ends with the Nietzsche epigraph from which it draws its title: "The desert grows, and woe to him who conceals the desert within him..."