In the Pit won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Mexico City, one of the world's most populous urban centres, bustles daily with over three million cars, travelling in and out and all over its metropolis. Between 2003 and 2005, crews of construction workers were dealt the task of building a second level on Mexico City's Periferico Freeway to cope with the expanding traffic.
Following one such construction crew over two years, Juan Carlos Rulfo's documentary shows the struggles and daily travails of building a freeway without the machinery expected in modern construction. In the dirt and grime of a too-often dangerous job, he finds unlikely beauty in the characters of everyday workmen, such as ‘Shorty' and ‘El Grande' whose philosophies on life are at polar opposites.
Alongside the mystical beliefs of the nightwatchmen and the frustrations of other workers on the project, Rulfo opens a clear window into the worlds of these workers who are passed by everyday by a whole city and who will never receive the recognition they deserve.