La Pastorela: The Shepherd's Tale

It is the day before Christmas. Gila Diaz is a young adolescent girl, the oldest child in a large rural Tex-Mex family. She is frustrated with her family's poverty and the drudgery of her life in caring for her many younger siblings. Gila's parents drag her and the family to midnight Mass. They go to hear the Pastorela, a traditional play about the shepherds who are told of the the birth of Christ and the triumph of the God's angels over Satan's diablos. Gila is knocked unconscious by a prop and suddenly she is transported into the real story of the Pastorela and begins a frightening fantastic quest to Bethlehem to find the Christ Child's manger.