Swiss filmmaker Heidi Specongna traveled to Guatemala and Los Angeles to make a complete portrait of the first Latino killed during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez, showing tomorrow as part of the Providence Latin American Film Festival.

Gutierrez was killed by “friendly fire” on the first day of battle when U.S. forces invaded Iraq. Other than press reports at the time that glorified him as the first Latino to die in the war, he probably would have remained just another faceless statistic.

But Specongna delves deep into Gutierrez’s past, not an easy feat. He lost his parents during the civil war in Guatemala when government forces began destroying Indian villages and killing the people who had lived there, an action later condemned by an international panel as genocide that had been aided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Gutierrez spent his early years homeless on the streets of Guatemala City. Even when he was taken in by an orphanage and helped by social workers, he would sometimes drift back to the streets.

It’s an emotional, sometimes hair-raising story in which Gutierrez, street-smart, but also vulnerable, dreams of becoming an architect, eventually is reunited with his long-lost sister and later begins hopping freight trains in Mexico in an attempt to cross the border into the United States to find a better life. Eventually, he does get to Los Angeles where he gets bounced among several foster homes, plays soccer for a local high school and comes to realize that the only way of going to college and fulfilling his dream of becoming an architect is to join the Marines and become what was known at the time as a “green card soldier” in a fast-track to citizenship.

Specongna presents Gutierrez’s life in great detail, with interviews from social workers, the orphanage director, his Marine sergeant, a foster parent, all of whom touched his life and who were touched by him.

The short life of Jose Gutierrez was filled with harrowing adventures, good luck, bad luck and tragedy. It was difficult and it ended too quickly, but Specongna’s film puts a face on the faceless statistics that, sadly, continue to grow.

The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez will be screened at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Cable Car Cinema as part of the Providence Latin American Film Festival. Tickets at the door are $8; $5 for seniors and students with ID.