In the Monero-backed short film Límite, directed by George Nicolas, a Mexican teenager is lured into a web of cross-border crime with dire consequences.
The film depicts 16-year-old Manuel, whose desire to assert his independence and confront the hardships of his neighborhood pulls him out of his grandfather's orbit and into the clutches of a cartel's drug trade.
Director George Nicholas was inspired by the case of Cruz Velazquez Acevedo, who died in U.S. custody after forcing a customs officer to drink liquid meth from his possession when he was stopped at the border. Obtained.
“I don't know if inspiration is the right word, but it was more of a necessity,” he said. Decryptionscene. “Maybe he did it out of guilt,” he added. “You know, just being an American myself and seeing how these children are being treated at the border.”
Nikolas, who is originally from Bulgaria, drew parallels between the situation in Mexico and the situation in Bulgaria in the 1990s.
“It was a similar situation right after the fall of communism, just gangs controlling the whole country and things like that,” he said. “So I think it was a combination of remembering my youth and also feeling that as an American I had some responsibility for what was happening at the border.”
Starring Monero
Limite was filmed on location in Tijuana with local crew and actors. Monero Participate in the community and put cryptocurrencies front and center.
“After I made the film, I was looking for support to release it, because submitting to festivals costs money, and publicists cost money,” Nicholas explained. “Luckily, we were able to receive support from them,'' said Nicolas, after he submitted his proposal to the Monero Community Crowdfunding System (CCS).
Gustavo Cruz as Manuel and Jorge Dominguez Cerda as Manuel Sr. in Limite.Image: George Nicholas
Nicholas requested 154 XMR. The value at the time of request was approximately $25,000. When the funds were finally disbursed in November 2023, that amount of Monero was worth slightly more, about $26,000.
“There was no other cryptocurrency to feature in the movie,” Nicholas said, adding that the privacy-focused Monero is “a cryptocurrency project that gives me hope for the future.”
The film features Monero in the form of a physical coin given to Manuel by his absentee father. Nicholas explained that because it is emblazoned with the cryptocurrency “M” logo, many people assume it is a “memorabilia or something unique to them” without understanding its true value.
“The coin in the film symbolizes Manuel's potential and unrealized talent,” he said. “He was interested in cars and shiny things and clothes and things like that, but he didn't realize what it was, he just didn't know how to unlock it, and he kept it in his pocket. It turned out that
“I think the metaphor here is that with cryptocurrencies, like with almost everything else, you need a certain level of knowledge to unlock the potential of what you have,” Nicholas he added.
The name of the cryptocurrency is not mentioned in the conversation, but this is a deliberate decision by the director. “I didn't want it to seem like product placement,” he says. “We wanted the audience to see the idea and the logo and know that it's untraceable and better than Bitcoin. That's it.”
Gustavo Cruz as Manuel and Carla Culebro as Maria in “Limité”.Image: George Nicholas
“Untraceable” Monero is widely referred to as a privacy coin. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a public ledger with pseudo-anonymous addresses that can be linked to users' identities, Monero uses a series of encryption techniques to protect users' identities.
This has led to conflicting discussions with lawmakers and regulators around the world. A number of crypto exchanges have delisted it, and just this month, the UK government characterized the privacy coin as being “not in the public interest.”
However, Nicholas disagrees with Monero's definition of a “privacy coin.”
“It's even more important because privacy is actually the fundamental thing you need before you can have great things like freedom of expression, property rights, and resistance to censorship,” he said. “All these things that people are talking about in the cryptocurrency space are kind of brought to their knees by the lack of privacy.”
The arrest of the founder of Bitcoin mixer Samurai Wallet last month and ongoing lawsuits against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm have raised concerns about a crackdown on privacy projects by US law enforcement.
In recent days, multiple coin-mixing tools have blocked access for US citizens, prompting CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden to issue a “final warning” on Twitter about Bitcoin privacy. Just this week, Monero P2P exchange LocalMonero announced it would be “winding down” its operations, citing “a combination of internal and external factors” as the reason for its decision to shut down.
Director George Nicholas on the set of “Limité.''Image: George Nicholas
In Nicholas' eyes, Bitcoin privacy tools such as Samourai Wallet are “fundamentally flawed.” He pointed out that “it was never really censor-proof. It's a server run by some guy, and the government could step in and say enough is enough.” .
In his view, the power of cryptocurrencies, and more specifically Monero, is that “people come together to form something that is unstoppable.”
“I sincerely hope that cryptocurrencies have a positive impact on people's lives,” he added. “One of the only ways I think other than increasing numbers is that these technologies give people some privacy and autonomy.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
