While the trauma of a missing child makes for the film’s heart, its spine is something much more difficult to effectively put on film: the horrible waiting, the in-between times, the stretched moments when no news — good or bad — is available.

The film is as much about the act of seeing and observing as it is about not seeing, about struggling to recognize that which might not clarify much at all.

Steven Scaife

Slant Magazine

It takes a special sort of confidence to make a quiet movie, and that’s exactly what director Fernanda Valadez displays in her debut feature, Identifying Features.