El Oaxaqueño [Working Title]

Leyver Martinez was ready to return home after 13 years in prison. But as a child he was brought to the U.S. without authorization, and so his release becomes his deportation. Following Leyver from a California prison to Oaxaca, Mexico, this film explores the complex intersections of incarceration and immigration, and their impact on one man searching for home.

Leyver suddenly finds himself in his hometown of Oaxaca, free for the first time in his adult life but in a place he long ago left behind. Reuniting with his extended family, he is surprised to find a sense of belonging as he connects to the people and culture. However, as he settles into his new life, his early enthusiasm fades when he realizes opportunities will not come as easily as he’d hoped. He also begins to understand that he may be forever in between—rejected by the country he thought of as home and, though welcomed back, identified as something other than Oaxacan by those around him.

El Oaxaqueño chronicles Leyver through past and present as he confronts what led to his current reality, exploring the roots of a violent young man, the trauma of prison, and a profound transformation undertaken in a solitary cell. The choices Leyver made and those imposed upon him reverberate through his return to a place that intimately shaped him but that he had hardly known, leading to a questioning of belonging and the meaning of home.