“Movies were the only topic of conversation at the dinner table”, Jonás Cuaron recalled to the HFPA about growing up in a family with his dad Alfonso, Golden Globe winning director of Gravity (2013) and his uncle Carlos producer of films like Y Tu Mamá Tambien and Rudo y Cursi. His own feature film debut, Desierto, is a taut chase thriller set in the Southwest desert where a deranged rancher (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) hunts down a hapless group of undocumented migrants, led by Gael García Bernal, attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. Here is what Bernal and Cuarón told the HFPA’s Gabriel Lerman about the film and how genre can still be the most effective form to treat social and political themes.

Read our exclusive interview with writer/director Jonás Cuaron.