Sin Nombre (2009) – Filming Locations
Drama / Action / Thriller / Crime · Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga · Starring Edgar Flores, Paulina Gaitán
Sayra, a Native Honduran teenager, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Sayra's life collides with a pair of Indigenous Mexican and Mestizo-Mexican gangmembers who have boarded the same USA-bound train.
Where was Sin Nombre filmed?
- Tapachula, Mexico, Tapachula – Opening scenes establishing the gang culture and the train yards where migrants board; Willy and the gang operate in this border town. The actual Tapachula rail yards and streets were used to authentically portray the dangerous transit hub where Central American migrants and Mexican gangs intersect
- Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca – Sayra's village and family home where she begins her journey north; scenes of rural Honduras community life. Rural Oaxacan villages provided the authentic impoverished backdrop for Sayra's Honduran family and her departure from home
- Mexico City, Mexico, Mexico City – Scenes of the gang's operations and urban migrant underworld in Mexico's capital. Mexico City's streets were filmed to show the urban landscape that connects gang activity with the migration route northward
- Veracruz, Mexico, Veracruz – Train travel sequences as migrants and characters journey along major rail routes toward the United States border. Veracruz's railway infrastructure and streets document the actual migrant route through Mexico on freight trains heading north
- US-Mexico Border Region, United States/Mexico, Border Region – Climactic sequences as characters attempt to cross the US-Mexico border; confrontations with border enforcement and gang violence. Real Texas borderland locations authentically capture the final, desperate stage of the migrants' journey and the violence that accompanies illegal border crossing