Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men thrusts readers into a gripping near-future world where environmental collapse and global infertility have fortified borders and torn apart the fabric of society. Its stark depictions of mass deportation, lawless border zones, and the desperate fight for survival echo powerfully through Octavia Butler’s prophetic novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, where environmental breakdown, migration, childbirth, and the resilience of women’s bodies form the core of her visionary storytelling. Remarkably, the futures imagined in these works are no longer distant—Butler’s 2024 has arrived, and Cuarón’s 2027 is nearly here. Children of Cuarón: Speculative Futures Through Cinematic Fiction ignites bold, necessary conversations about borders, immigration, and the urgent political, environmental, and social challenges facing our world today. By examining how speculative fiction dares to imagine what comes next, this book invites readers to confront the realities of our present—and the possibilities of our future—with fresh eyes and uncompromising clarity.

MATT GARCIA is the Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations at Dartmouth College. He has published several books, including most recently Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of The World’s Most Notorious Corporations. 

JEFFREY ROMERO MIDDENTS is an associate professor of literature at American University. He is the author of Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru. 

MARY K. COFFEY is a professor of art history and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Orozco’s American Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race and How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State. 

DESIRÉE J. GARCIA is a professor of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies and film and media studies at Dartmouth College. She has authored several books, including The Dressing Room: Backstage Stories and American Film (Rutgers University Press) and The Movie Musical (Rutgers University Press). 

“London, 16th November 2027” 

MATT GARCIA

1 Hope, Despair, and the (Im)possibility of Utopia: An Epistolary Dialogue About Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men 

MAIA GIL’ADÍ AND DAVID VÁZQUEZ

Part I The Film

2 Made You Look: Insistent Cameras and Narrative Divergences in Children of Men 

JEFFREY ROMERO MIDDENTS

3 Hot White Dads at the End of the World: Theo Faron as Surrogate Father

MARCELA DI BLASI

4 The Missing Kee: Reception and Children of Men 

ORQUIDEA MORALES

5 The World Without Us: Visions of Animals, Ecology, and Social Reproduction in Children of Men and Blade Runner 

MARIO REINALDO MACHADO

Part II Comparisons and Context

6 Do Mexican Murals Dream of Latinx Futures? Doom Patterns and Speculative Futurity in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men

and José Clemente Orozco’s The Epic of American Civilization 

MARY K . COFFEY

7 Present Tense: Children of Men and Woman on the Edge of Time Through the Lens of Latinxfuturism 

CATHERINE S. RAMÍREZ

8 The Poetry of Children of Men 

FRANCISCO E. ROBLES

9 Children of Men at the Palestine-Mexico Border 

ALEX AVIÑA

Appendix: The Black Madonna: Children of Men 

DIANA ADESOLA MAFE

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors 

Index