Mexico
Sea of Shadows
Richard Ladkani’s riveting documentary ventures into the front line of efforts to save the planet’s most endangered sea mammal. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish – the “cocaine of the sea” – in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the most elusive and endangered whale species on earth, the vaquita porpoise.
Dark Suns + Q&A
Shot in stark monochrome, Julien Elie‘s epic documentary Dark Suns chronicles stories of some of the many thousands of women, journalists, students, and activists who have disappeared in Mexico since the 1990s, and the insidious culture of cartel violence and state corruption behind them.
Screening: The Ransom + Q&A
The Ransom dives into the secret system of Kidnap & Ransom, designed by major insurance companies in response to the 30,000 kidnappings committed every year around the world.
Frontline and Freelance: Journalists at Risk. Mexico City Event
The Frontline Club and the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR) will be running their first ever film night in Mexico + Q&A, in celebration of the FFR starting a new chapter, to support journalists operating in the country.
The Sorrows of Mexico: Lydia Cacho and Anabel Hernandez in Conversation
Over the last twelve years, as Mexico has become the epicentre of the international drug trade, more than one hundred journalists, a generation of writers, has been killed or disappeared. The Sorrows of Mexico is a collection of essays from the leading writer-journalists of Mexico, each one concentrating on a single issue among the many which afflict their country. We will be joined by two of the book’s contributors, Anabel Hernandez and Lydia Cacho, who will discuss their experiences as female journalists working in one of the most hostile environments for human rights reporting.
Sicario: Mexican Drug Cartels & the US-led War on Drugs
Journalist and writer Ed Vulliamy was joined by Empire film critic Dan Jolin on Friday 5 February at the Frontline Club, to watch and discuss Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. The Academy Award-nominated film, the title of which translates to ‘assassin’, tells the story of the inextricably linked worlds of US law enforcement agencies and Mexican drug cartels.
Screening: Sicario + Q&A
The Frontline Club is delighted to host a screening of Dennis Villeneuve’s Sicario to coincide with the BluRay and DVD release of the film this February. This screening will be followed by a discussion with journalist Ed Vulliamy.
After rising through the ranks of her male-dominated profession, idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) receives a top assignment. Recruited by mysterious government official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), Kate joins a task force for the escalating war against drugs.
Corruption, Violence and Impunity in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
By Molly Fleming On Thursday 12 November, award-winning reporter Sandra Rodríguez Nieto spoke with author and journalist for the Observer and the Guardian Ed Vulliamy about life and death in Juarez, the Mexican murder capital of the world.
Insight with Sandra Rodríguez Nieto: Life and Death in Juárez
We are pleased to welcome Sandra Rodríguez Nieto to the Frontline Club in conversation with Ed Vulliamy, writer for the Guardian and Observer. They will be discussing the poverty, deep levels of corruption, incapacitated government institutions and US meddling that have combined to create an explosion of violence in Juárez.
Cartel Land: Violence and Vigilantism in Mexico
By Ratha Lehall On Friday 4 September, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Cartel Land, a fearless and revealing documentary that portrays the violent influence of Mexican drug cartels and the vigilante groups fighting to end their reign of terror. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Matthew Heineman.
Screening: Cartel Land + Q&A
In this double Sundance winner, Matthew Heineman takes us deep into the world of Mexican drug cartels by embedding himself with two vigilante groups on either side of the US-Mexico border.
They are Us: Mark Aitken’s Dead When I Got Here
By Francis Churchill On Monday 22 June 2015, the Frontline Club screened Mark Aitken’s new film Dead When I Got Here. The film is centred on Josué, a former psychiatric patient who oversees the day to day running of a mental asylum in the Mexican border town of Juárez. Through Josué, Aitken tells the story […]
Food Chains: The Struggle of Farm Workers in the US
By Ratha Lehall On Wednesday 27 May, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of Food Chains, a documentary which gives a revealing insight into the working conditions of farm labourers in the US. The film also follows a campaign against a powerful supermarket chain led by a workers’ movement in Immokalee, Florida. The screening was followed by a Q&A […]
Preview Screening: Dead When I Got Here + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mark Aitken and journalist Ed Vulliamy.
Compassion and self-affirmation are discovered by a man as he manages a mental asylum run by its own patients in Juárez, Mexico – the world’s most violent city. Juárez, a city that borders the United States, is at once a place of diverse culture and tradition and a site of desperation and rampant poverty.
The Heroic Tragedy: Who is Dayani Cristal?
By George Symonds “The Journey towards you Lord, is life. To set off is to die a little.” (The Migrants’ Prayer) On Monday 7 July 2014, the Frontline Club screened Who is Dayani Cristal? The film follows actor Gael García Bernal as he retraced the footsteps of a Honduran man found dead in the Arizonan […]
Tracing Migration
By Lisa Dupuy Where there are borders, attempts will likely be made to cross them in the hope of reaching greener pastures. But the individuals who try are not necessarily welcomed by those who live on the other side. Fences, walls and legislation are thrown up to at least regulate the influx of migrants. And in some cases, borders are […]
How can Mexico live without drug money?
By Sally Ashley-Cound From over five years of interviews with members of the main cartels in Mexico, ex-policemen, army generals and officials in the government, journalist Anabel Hernández‘s book Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their God Fathers investigates the corruption and compliancy of the official governmental system and the drug cartels in her home […]
Insight with Anabel Hernández: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers
Anabel Hernández is one of Mexico’s leading investigative journalists. It was the kidnap and murder of her father and the subsequent refusal by the police to investigate unless her family paid a bribe that led her to journalism. She will be joining us in conversation with Ed Vulliamy, a writer for The Guardian and Observer, and author of Amexica: War Along the Borderline, to talk about the work she does recording and investigating the shocking brutality of narco violence and the complexity of the cartels, their rivalries and their links to government and business.
The immense power of the state
By Laura Hughes A screening of Reportero took place at the Frontline Club on Friday 15 February, followed by a Q&A over Skype with the director Bernardo Ruiz. Ruiz’s documentary follows the story of reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Zeta, an independent Mexican weekly newspaper. Since Zeta was founded in 1980, three of […]
Screening: Reportero + Q&A
In Mexico, more than 40 journalists have been killed or have vanished since December 2006. Reportero illustrates the ruthless practices of the drug cartels, and the corruption that makes it so dangerous for journalists to do their jobs. Followed by a Q&A over Skype with director Bernardo Ruiz.
Screening: The Mexican Suitcase + Q&A
By Sally Ashley-Cound On the 5th of November filmmaker Trisha Ziff brought her widely acclaimed film The Mexican Suitcase to the Frontline Club. Thought lost since 1939, the group of three boxes full of negatives by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David ‘Chim’ Seymour, known as The Mexican Suitcase, was uncovered in Mexico by Ziff […]
Narco Estado: an advertisement of terror
By Merryn Johnson Teun Voeten’s CV reads like a guide to some of the world’s most dangerous places. “For 25 years I’ve been working [as a photojournalist and anthropologist] and seeing pretty nasty things, to put it diplomatically, in Rwanda, Sierra Leon, Liberia, Congo, but this is savagery and depravity that I have not seen.” […]
In the Picture – Narco Estado: Drug violence in Mexico with Teun Voeten
After three years focusing on the drug related violence destabilising Mexico, photographer and anthropologist Teun Voeten has just released his latest photobook Narco Estado. Voeten photographed the drug violence capital, Ciudad Juarez, as well as other hot spots such as Culiacan and Michoacan. He will present his images and speak about the collaborative and anthropological approach he adopted for the book, using introductory essays by El Paso based anthropologist Howard Campbell as well as Culiacan based writer Javier Valdez Cardenas.
Graham Greene: A Finger on the Pulse of the 20th Century
By Jim Treadway "He was there!" Director Thomas O’Connor said of English author and journalist Graham Greene (1904-1991), the subject of his documentary Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, which was viewed by a full house at the Frontline Club on 1 October. "There, you know, for 70 years, from one place to another, […]
Insight with Lydia Cacho: Slavery Inc.
By Jim Treadway In Mexico over the past decade, several dozen journalists have been killed, abducted, and tortured. Crime flourishes, and ties between cartels and politicians are deeply intertwined. Yet journalist Lydia Cacho has persisted in uncovering these networks, risking her life to tell the stories of their victims and reveal the businessmen and politicians […]
Mexico’s pretend war
Report by Nigel Wilson In the wake of Sunday’s election victory for the PRI led by Enrique Peña Nieto, a transatlantic panel of experts arrived at the Frontline Club on Tuesday to wrestle with the challenges facing Mexico in 2012. Peña Nieto, the telegenic new president with the telenovela wife, has inherited a state supposedly at […]
Mexico’s drugs war and the challenges facing its new President
Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon initiated a large scale crackdown on drug cartels in 2006 funded by millions of dollars in US military aid, the death toll in the country is believed to have reached 50,000 or more. Join us to discuss the different forces at play in this long and bloody war and if the efforts of the US and Mexican governments to break up and destroy the drug cartels can succeed.
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 26 June to 1 July
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 26 June to Sunday 1 July from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Israel on Monday, where he’s scheduled to attend the unveiling of a national memorial to Red Army soldiers killed during World War II. Putin is also due to meet […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 16 – 22 January
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 16 to Sunday, 22 January from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt IMF, European Central Bank and EU officials are scheduled to arrive in Athens on Monday to conduct a week-long assessment mission of Greece’s debt-reduction measures. Everyone will be hoping the troika visit goes better this […]
The dangers of reporting Ciudad Juarez
Daniel Dominguez, one of the hard-worked crime reporters on El Diario, the biggest newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, was kind enough to let me spend the day with him last week. Here’s the report I produced for AFP, which you can also see here on YouTube. The same video is also embedded below, in case of […]