Cazadores
1997 · 12m · España
Directed by Achero Mañas
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary
Tones: contemplative, dark, provocative
A group of children tell the camera how they torture animals such as lizards, cats and rats, until one of them recounts how the previous summer, after attacking a cat with his friends, he saw something that made him reflect on what they were doing.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Mañas walks straight into the discomfort everyone else avoids—a doc that lets kids describe animal cruelty without flinching or moralizing, then pivots on a single moment of reflection that feels earned rather than imposed. It's the kind of film that makes programmers nervous and proves why they should be.
The structural restraint here is remarkable: a observational framework that trusts silence and children's unmediated testimony to do the philosophical work, positioning itself in the lineage of Vigo and early Haneke without the performative darkness that would date it.
The revelation that transforms the entire piece lands because Mañas lets the children's own voices carry the weight—no narrator, no score, just the decision to end on a single moment of dawning conscience rather than resolution, and that choice makes all the austerity sing.