Julio Mendez

Mona picks up her first job tutoring two orphaned children living in a derelict house in the country. Her obsession with trying to educate these two nearly feral children blinds her to the fact they have other plans for her.

A nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this tender but clear-eyed coming-of-age tale.

They Returned is a beautifully touching and unnerving story about the unexplained disappearance of three children, two boys and one girl, and their reappearance three days later in a semi-autistic state. Not even the children themselves are able to help anyone understand what happened.