On the Road
En El Camino
At once intense and intimate, Venice 2025’s Queer Lion winner follows a drifter who goes on the run – and finds a meaningful spark – with a middle-aged truck driver.
Foolhardy young Veneno makes ends meet by sleeping with drivers at truck stops in exchange for cash or drugs. He seemingly has no family nor long-term plans; so, when one of his clients stiffs him, he decides to hitch a ride to the other side of the country. Enter Muñeco, a hardened fortysomething trucker estranged from his wife and kids, who offers Veneno a seat in his 18-wheeler. As the men drive across northern Mexico, walls come down and feelings develop – but can the pair outrun the demons from Veneno’s past when they give chase?
Winning the Queer Lion at Venice as well as the festival’s Orizzonti Award for Best Film, the fifth feature from David Pablos (The Chosen Ones, MIFF 2015) – produced by Diego Luna (Y tu mamá también, MIFF 2002) – both fulfils and defies genre expectations with its noir-infused, violent and erotically charged tale of lust, longing and the winding road in search of connection. Newcomers Víctor Miguel Prieto and Osvaldo Sánchez have an undeniable chemistry, embodying Veneno and Muñeco’s shared hunger for the belonging that their hypermasculine, heteronormative blue-collar world has denied them.
“Tender and ultimately moving … Amid all the lust, violence, blood and other bodily fluids, Pablos has crafted a deeply felt romance about two men who passionately find each other in a very dark place.” – The Hollywood Reporter
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