The Back of the World

Masterfully weaving the stories of three specific lives, voices, and tales of disenfranchisement, the film powerfully mines human rights issues endemic in child labor, political imprisonment, and capital punishment. Beginning with "The Child," we are escorted to a rugged Peruvian mountain village where 11-year-old Guinder Rodriguez engages in the backbreaking toil of splitting boulders to support his family. Slaving alongside other children and old men alike, Guinder's dreams are undaunted by the unyielding immobility of the impoverished in the third world. In "The Word," we are catapulted into the mire of the Kurdish diaspora as we meet a 60-year-old political refugee and his wife, Leyla Zana, imprisoned for speaking out for her people. The closing chapter, "Life," centers on the emotional and politically heated account of two men, Thomas Miller and Tomás Rangel, scheduled to die by lethal injection in a Texas prison.