‘How long have you been here?’ the invisible interviewer asks.

‘Five years,’ he says, looking at his hand as if he needs to count the years on his fingers.

‘And you have a good life here?’

‘Sí, a good life. A house, a job,’ he answers, without the enthusiasm that his words might be expected to generate. He lets his hand sweep round in a gesture that invites the camera to confirm what he has just said.

‘But you miss your family?’

‘Claro.’

‘You have two children?’

‘A son and a daughter.’

‘What age are they?’

‘Son twenty, daughter eighteen. My wife is dead.’

‘You think of them often?’

‘Siempre, siempre.’

‘You’re here illegally, aren’t you?’

He nods imperceptibly then raises his right hand languidly off the table in a way that seems to suggest the question is unnecessary and that life has brought him where he is and in so doing it overrules whatever laws might exist. The gesture is not an apology so much as an expression of acceptance of the way things are.

‘You crossed illegally?’

‘Yes, I came with the coyotajes.’

‘Was the journey difficult?’

He draws on the cigarette, then after considering the question nods slowly.

‘A long walk through desert. Not easy. Not everyone made it on that crossing.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He stubs out his cigarette with more force than is needed and it’s unclear whether the frustration is at the question or caused by his memories. His face disappears, only his words are heard as we are shown images of a desolate landscape dressed in heavy brush, cacti, mesquite, and the camera follows little sanded pathways, stopping only to home in briefly on a scrap of clothing barbed on a bush or an empty water container.

‘We had paid our money and went at night, crossing where we were told no guards would ever look. We followed the coyotajes for a long time. Very cold at night, hot during the day. You cannot carry all the water you need. Sometimes needles go through your boots. I see snakes. Sometimes we rest but not often enough for some of the group. The coyotajes smoke dope, which is a bad thing when a clear head is needed. Sometimes they laugh at something and I begin to think that they can’t be trusted and that they are leading us nowhere and will disappear with our money into the darkness.’

In a clearing the camera pans around the debris of a crossing party – water canisters, empty cans, scraps of clothing, food wrappings, a half-covered sole of a shoe. The camera lingers on them as if they are sacred objects. Everything in this film is slowed down. I hear a voice in my head saying, ‘More matter, less art.’

‘The second night we hear an engine some way far, but for sure an engine, and we have to scatter, hide in the brush. There are headlights and voices, but it passes on, and after an hour we start off again, but now our guides are gone and when we gather some are still missing. I never see them again. Never.’