2015 Double Exposure: Investigative Film Festival & Symposium | Page 13
THURSDAY, OCT 1, 6 PM
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Post screening panel discussion
with Matt Heineman and Ray
Suarez.
CARTEL LAND
(Dir. Matthew Heineman, USA/Mexico, 100 min.)
With unprecedented access, CARTEL LAND is a riveting, on-the-ground look at
the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy – the
murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose
Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” leads the Autodéfensas, a
citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked
havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Altar Valley – a narrow,
52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley – Tim “Nailer” Foley,
an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border
Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
Filmmaker Matthew Heineman embeds himself in the heart of darkness as
Nailer, El Doctor, and the cartel each vie to bring their own brand of justice to a
society where institutions have failed. From executive producer Kathryn Bigelow
(THE HURT LOCKER, ZERO DARK THIRTY), CARTEL LAND is a chilling,
visceral meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between
good and evil. At the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Heineman received both
the Directing Award and Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the U.S.
Documentary competition.