INNOCENT VOICES

1980, El Salvador. Peasant guerrillas snipe at the U.S.-trained Salvadoran military who retaliate fiercely in a not-so-civil war. Caught in the crossfire are villagers ? women and children. One of them is Chava, 11 years old and man of the house, an exuberant kid who plays like a child who has no worries in the world. But when he turns 12, it?s a different story: the military will come and take him away to be a soldier. ?Recruitment? is an understatement when the army sweeps through small villages like Chava?s and force boys into caravans; Chava?s mother will do anything to prevent this. While the war rages around them, the villagers go to school, attend church and try to make homes in shacks made of corrugated tin and broken glass that are often destroyed at night. Based on the true life story of screenwriter Oscar Torres, the film is a beautifully photographed coming-of-age story, a war story, a rebuke and a reminder of a controversial ?conflict? that killed 75,000 people and created a million refugees.