Official Mexican selection for Best
Foreign Language Film in the 2005 Academy Awards
and based on a true story, INNOCENT VOICES is the
poingnant tale of Chava, a little boy in the twilight
year before his 12th
birthday: the date that he will be drafted to fight
in his country’s civil war.
In El Savador during the 1980s, the government’s
armed forces plucked twelve-year-old boys from their
mothers’ arms to fight in a war of attrition
against the rebel forces. With just one year of
childhood left, Chava (Carlos
Padilla) too faces the draft and the certainty
that he will have to leave his home forever to fight
a man’s war that he doesn’t understand.
His life becomes a game of survival, not only from
the bullets of the escalating war, but also from
the demoralizing effects of daily violence. Armed
only with his mother’s love and a small radio
that sings of freedom and peace, Chava finds the
courage to keep his heart open and his spirit alive
in his last year of innocence.
