Heli 2014

Heli is a young man who works in a car assembly factory and lives a quiet, precarious life with his father at the plant, his wife Sabrina, their baby Santiago, and his sister Estela, a 12-year-old girl. The routine is slow and financially fragile, and the couple’s relationship is strained, casting a shadow over their small family.

Estela enters a relationship with Beto, a cadet who is at seventeen and noticeably older than her. He showers her with attention, but Estela resists his sexual advances out of fear of pregnancy. Beto’s plan to escape and start a new life leads him to propose marriage, and to finance this, he intends to move stolen cocaine. He hides the drugs in Heli’s house with Estela’s agreement, waiting for a chance to complete the sale. When Heli uncovers the hidden affair and the drugs, he rebukes his sister, locks her in her room, and secretly disposes of the cocaine in a remote water pit used for cattle.

That night, federal police storm the house. Heli’s father dies protecting the family, and the officers forcefully seize Heli and Estela (Sabrina and the baby are not present at the time). A severely beaten Beto is dragged along as they search for the missing drugs. They learn that the package was destroyed, abandon the father’s body on the roadside, and drive to a hidden drug house. There, the dealers torture Beto—beating him with wooden sticks and burning his genitals—before hanging his body from a pedestrian bridge. Heli is spared, while Estela is taken away. The violence leaves Heli reeling and deeply shaken.

Back at home, the police help Heli recover and locate his father’s body. They also take his statement, but suspicion quickly turns toward him and his family. The police question whether Heli and his father were involved in drug dealing and refuse further help when Heli won’t sign a formal statement or provide a written account, fearing they might be framed.

Trauma and fear begin to fracture Heli’s life. He struggles with the memories and the corrupt system, and his relationship with Sabrina deteriorates as he becomes more volatile. He loses his job at the car plant after losing focus at work. A news report later reveals that the federal officers who abducted them have themselves been decapitated. A female detective assigned to the case learns that Estela was Beto’s girlfriend and insinuates that the file is closed, attempting to pursue Heli with inappropriate advances—an offer he initially entertains but ultimately rejects.

Estela returns home in a state of profound trauma, pregnant beyond what she can legally terminate, and unable to speak. Heli and Sabrina comfort her as she reveals a map to the place where she was held and raped. Heli goes to that location, where he kills the man living there. The act brings a fragile sense of relief, and he returns home to reconnect with his wife. The family dynamics shift again as Estela sleeps, exhausted, beside her nephew in what remains of their fragile world.

The film closes on a note of quiet, unresolved tension, with the family trying to piece together a future in the aftermath of overwhelming violence, corruption, and loss.