When Alfred Molina and Ruben Blades came on board, Brian Cox's Scorpion Spring became a force to be reckoned with. "Alfred is an actor's actor," explains debut writer-director Cox. "They weren't exactly getting paid much, but Ruben wanted to work with him. Politically, that gave the film a stamp of approval."

Molina, known for his parts in Prick Up Your Ears and Species, headlines as Denis Brabant, a debauched middle-aged actor travelling along the Mexican-Californian border with the naïve, young American, Zac, played by Patrick McGaw (Basketball Diaries). Driving to Los Angeles they pick up a pair of Mexican drug-smugglers, who are being pursued by, among others, a renegade border patrolman played by Blades (The Milagro Beanfield War).

Cox, whose recent short The Orbit Writer starred Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino, became fascinated by border-life while "getting better acquainted with a mescal distiller in Nogales."

While pointing out that the US$1 million Scorpion Spring is as much character and plot-driven as political, he admits to having been shocked by the poverty south of the border: "I wanted to show the Mexicans sympathetically, to show why they would come across the border."

Adam Minns

Prod co: Distant Horizon

Prod: Anant Singh

Dir/scr: Brian Cox

Ph: Nancy Schreiber

Ed: Steve Nevius

Prod des: Joanne Baker

Music: Lalo Schifrin

Cast: Alfred Molina, Ruben Blades, Esai Morales

Running time: 89 mins International

sales: Overseas Filmgroup

Screening: 23 June, 22:00, Kveten

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