'Cartel Land' Filmmaker on Mexican Drug Wars: 'There's Danger Around You at All Times' Brent Lang - Variety
go to original May 13, 2015

Cartel Land: Meet Matthew Heineman (Sundance Film Festival)

“Cartel Land” director Matthew Heineman put his life on the line to take viewers into the heart of the drug wars that are ripping Mexico apart.

But his camera doesn’t stop on that side of the Rio Grande. The documentary also focuses on Tim “Nailer” Foley, the head of a paramilitary group in Arizona that polices an often porous border. In Mexico, Heineman focused on Dr. Jose Mireles, a doctor by day and the head of a citizen task force called the Autodefensas, that is trying to weaken the stranglehold the cartels have on their daily lives by taking up arms.

In Heineman’s hands, “Cartel Land” paints a portrait of vigilantism that is both galvanizing and deeply troubling, and the lengths that some brave men and women are willing to go to when governments fail in their duty to protect and safeguard their citizens.

Variety spoke with the documentary filmmaker about the dangers he faced in bringing the story to the screen, as he crisscrossed between the United States and Mexico, across meth labs and hideouts, in an effort to make sense of the lawlessness that threatens people in both countries and the drug trade that fuels it. “Cartel Land” will screen at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, having previously earned strong notices at the Sundance Film Festival.

Read the interview at Variety

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