A hardened ex-military contractor races to rescue her abducted daughter from organ traffickers, reconnecting with the family she'd lost along the way.
Written, directed, and produced by Marco Alejandro Santiago, Xtraction screened at festivals including the HBO Latino Film Festival in New York City and the Palm Springs Short Fest.
Set across Afghanistan, Mexico, and the Arizona suburbs, Xtraction tells the story of Ronnie, a hardened ex-military contractor on a private mission to rescue her abducted daughter from the hands of organ traffickers. In the process, she emotionally reconnects with the ones she loves.
Ronnie is a hardened ex-military contractor. Her experience in stress-filled interrogations of Mujahedeen fighters, hand-to-hand combat, and other military operations, some under morally ambiguous directives, has left her suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Her only means of coping is to fill her days with the details of work as a professional security and law-enforcement consultant in Mexico: meetings, projects, phone calls, and risky trips across the border. Her busy schedule becomes an escape from her emotional life, until she no longer even has time to take her daughter to soccer practice.
It all comes to a head when, after an argument, Ronnie's daughter is abducted in a Mexican border town. The traumatic incident awakens Ronnie to a loss far greater than the physical one. She and her husband Dave travel back to Mexico in search of their daughter and to meet with Rene, the U.S. Consulate contact Ronnie consults for, only for Ronnie to be abducted herself. Under interrogation, Rene is revealed as her captor, torturing her for information about U.S. agents embedded in local customs. Ronnie's warrior training allows her to kill Rene and escape with her daughter, reconnecting with her family in the process.