Based on a true story, No Turning Back (Sin Returno) is about a Honduran father and daughter in Southern California. On October 27, 1998, Professor Pablo Fernandez (played by Jesús Nebot) returned from teaching English at a university in Honduras, only to find that Hurricane Mitch destroyed his home, taking the life of his pregnant wife. Promising to his remaining daughter Cristina (played by Chelsea Rendon) that he would never leave her alone, they enter the United States illegally from México in January 1999 hoping for a better life. Without proper documentation, his only employment is to pick tomatoes for a farmer in California, while Cristina excels at an elementary school where she makes plenty of friends due to her charming personality. On September 9, 1999, he borrows his employer’s truck to transport his six-year-old daughter to a birthday party, drives down a residential street in Oceanside, swerves to avoid hitting a dog that suddenly emerges in the path of the truck, and instead hits a five-year-old girl, who soon dies. Rather than stopping, Pablo speeds on to avoid being arrested by police and then separated from his daughter; he tells her that they are embarking on a “vacation.” While attempting to escape the law, he runs into sassy, anti-establishment Soid (played by Lindsay Price), an Asian American journalist who provides transportation for them in exchange for a videotaped version of their story. (Occasional footage from a videocamera testifies that her cinematographic skills are sorely lacking, however.) The film also focuses on the family of the deceased daughter–a husband (played by Paul Ganus) who is a physician at a local hospital, a wife (played by Susan Haskell) who deeply mourns the loss of their daughter, and their son. Clearly, Mrs. Knight feels guilty because she did not prevent her daughter from riding a tricycle into the street without first checking traffic. Soon, the police assign the hit-and-run case to cynical African American Detective Bryant (played by Vernée Watson-Johnson) and her novice Hispanic partner Charlie (played by Joe Estevez). Although Soid urges Pablo to escape to México to avoid being arrested or extradited, he shows her the scar that he received while attempting to cross the border in January; Cristina also insists that they should never return to México, preferring to vacation in the Bahamas. Since the Bahamas is out of the question, Pablo decides to head for Canada, and Soid agrees. However, dangers impede the northern escape route. Since Pablo has no safe place to stay, he has to sleep in uncomfortable places. Lacking money, Cristina begs on the beach, and Pablo robs a convenience story, putting a couple of hundred dollars in his pocket. At the suggestion of Soid, he applies for a maintenance job on a cruise ship, and she arranges at her own expense for him to have fake papers. While jobhunting, Pablo parks Cristina at a church-operated day care center, where she fractures an ankle. The following day, still in pain, Pablo takes her to a hospital. By some coincidence, her emergency room physician is Dr. Knight, and the police are soon hot on his trail. After a seven-day manhunt, they handcuff Pablo, who is no longer interested in living if he cannot keep his promise to stay with his daughter. The inevitable tragic end for Pablo, however, is mitigated at the end of the film by redemption for Cristina and the Knights, though Soid’s role in harboring a fugitive is never brought to justice. Codirected by Julia Monejo and Jesús Nebot, No Turning Back shows what happens when a father is willing to sacrifice everything to provide a better life for his daughter, providing an insight into a motivation for illegal aliens to enter the United States that is seldom exposed in the popular media. As the tagline says, “Headlines never tell the whole story.” MH