Coming Home follows Angel Cordero as he is released from prison after serving 13 years. We are welcomed into Angel’s life as if we are a trusted friend. This is assured filmmaking by Viko Nikci that trusts and follows the heart of the story, as if it went looking for a portrait of a man but found something much more. When I first saw clips I thought it was a scripted fiction feature drama. I could not believe what was captured, that I was witnessing a man’s journey back to himself in the most intimate of ways. Angel is at times searingly honest, at times broken, but always hopeful, always profoundly human. You realise that coming ‘home’ is all-encompassing and undefinable. It’s a place, it’s a time, it’s a daughter, it’s a Polaroid picture, it’s a never-ending search. The heart that beats in this story is the heart that sustained an innocent man through 13 years of wrongful incarceration. It is the heart that puts freedom on the line to cross state lines to give his estranged daughter a birthday present. It is the heart that looks the true perpetrator of the crime in the eye and manages to surprise us all.
Kirsten Sheridan
Writer-director
Please note that the festival is for over 18s only
