Ricardo and Alain, two wealthy kids, are on a prowl for marijuana in the heart of Mexico City, but their adventure turns grim when they police stops them and, find the goods on them. They try to bribe their way out, so Alain is sent off to an ATM, while the other remains under threat of execution.

After he fails to bring the amount that was asked for, Ricardo is told that Alain is dead and is instructed to phone for money – which he does. Later, Ricardo spots Alain’s car and sees his friend alive – just as Alain sees Ricardo. Clearly Alain had been given the same brutal story.

The ending is another turn of the clash between these two youngsters with a reality they didn’t know and can’t control.

Milos Forman Finishing Fund Award
Best Film Award Columbia University Film Festival 2002
Second Place Student Live Action Aver 15 Minutes – Palm Springs 2002
Best Drama - Aspen Shortsfest 2003
Best Student Short – Honorary Mention Woodstock Film Festival 2003

Filmmaker Sergio Umansky came to Columbia University’s graduate film school in 1999 from his native Mexico City, where he was a film/television major in the Communication and Media Studies program at Anahuac University. He has written and directed a number of short films and directed several television segments. “Aqui iba el himno” is his premier 35mm effort.

The film - shot on location in Mexico City in a six-day shoot - follows two well-to-do young men who are suddenly snatched out of their complacent world by brutal social reality. It has played at such prestigious festivals as Telluride, Sundance, and Berlin, among others. Umansky is currently working on writing and pre-producing his thesis directing script, which will tell the true story of a massacre in the United States from the point-of-view of all of the individual participants.