- Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood's borders.
- In Mexico City, a wealthy compound is surrounded by walls and surveillance system to protect the locals against the violence of the slums. During a stormy night, a billboard falls over the wall and three smalltime thieves cross the border through the breach to rob. They break into a house and kill an old lady; the residents organize militias to chase the delinquents. Two of them and one security guard are murdered by the vigilantes, but the sixteen year old Miguel hides in the basement of the teenager Alejandro. When Alejandro finds Miguel, he feeds and helps the boy, but it is impossible to escape from the Zone.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- On a stormy, warm Mexico-City evening a giant billboard falls onto the secured walls of La Zona, an exclusive gated community boardering a large shantytown. Electricity fails and security cameras no longer work. A short instance of chaos ruins the residences tranquility, as three young theives climb the fallen billboard over the wall and break into the first villa they encounter the owners wife stumbles upon them, and as they try to rob her of her precious wedding ring the lady resists and the robbers kill her. The maid and husband, alerted by the noise, find her dead on the floor and the husband in persuit of the murderers shoots two of the boys and a security guard in the wrong place at the wrong time. The old man wants to confess to the police his rash act, but is stopped as a community council is erected by the ambitious Andrea. Nobody is to speak a word to the police, and the bodies are disposed of among other municipal garbage. The third boy young Miguel hides in the cellar of one of the homes. Meanwhile, Alejandro, the teenager living in that same house, sees his mother and father fight over the correctness of the decisions taken by the Council. The persuit of the third, and missing, boy becomes pivotal as both the police on the outside and vigilantes on the inside deposit in him their faith to resolve the problem. As the police interview the boys girlfriend and mother, Alejandro and his friends rob a gun and persue him through the Zones forest encountering the vigilantes shooting back at them. That same night, Alejandro finds Miguel, the boy, in his cellar. Miguel pleeds him to help him out and explains his side of the story. Alejandro brings him food and a pair of new trainers, and tapes his story on his new videocamera. Meanwhile, the police commissioner is paid off by the Council and all persuit of the case is said to be dropped. The girlfriend is beat up, the mother waits relentlessly at the gates of the community. Miguel, hearing the police, decides to make a run for it hoping the police will take him to safety. He runs out onto the streets, vigilantes and council behind him, after the police car, banging on the windows, but they wont stop. What follows is the lynching of the fifteen year-old boy at the feet of the members of the Council. Alejandro tries to stop them but is too late. He lays Miguels body in his SUV, hands his father the dvd with Miguels testimony, and drives away past Miguels mother, who is still waiting at the gates to the closest cementary. He copies the phone number written on Miguels arm by his girlfriend and calls her to tell her that Miguel is dead. Alejandros father, initiative-taking member of the Council cant stop watching Miguels testimony over and over again, torn and stupified.
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