Synopsis

In 1952, 23-year-old medical student Ernesto Guevara and his older friend Alberto Granado leave Buenos Aires on a battered Norton motorcycle. Their planned journey across South America becomes an encounter with breathtaking landscapes, indigenous communities, miners, and patients at a leper colony. As their vehicle fails and their money runs out, the trip broadens their understanding of poverty, inequality, and continental identity.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film draws from two firsthand accounts: Ernesto Guevara's memoir and Alberto Granado's memoir about their 1952 journey.

• The motorcycle is a 1939 Norton 500 nicknamed "La Poderosa," or "The Mighty One." Its repeated breakdowns become one of the journey's defining practical obstacles.

• The production traveled through several South American countries and used locations connected with the real trip, including the Atacama Desert, Chuquicamata, Machu Picchu, and the San Pablo leper colony.

• The scenes at the leper colony were filmed at the actual San Pablo facility visited by Guevara and Granado. Some of the people appearing in those sequences had personal connections to the colony's history.

• The river crossing near the end was filmed in the Amazon region. Gael Garcia Bernal reportedly swam across the actual Amazon River during several nights of filming.

• The film premiered in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where cinematographer Eric Gautier received the Vulcain Prize for an artist technician.

• At the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, the film received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song. Jorge Drexler won for "Al otro lado del rio."

• The film also won the 2005 BAFTA Award for Film Not in the English Language.