The Sundance award-winning 2015 documentary “Cartel Land” will make its San Antonio premiere at the Guadalupe Theater. The film is executive produced by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty”).
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 Autodefensas, 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. “Cartel Land” is a chilling, visceral meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between good and evil.
“Cartel Land” will have its official release in San Antonio July 24 at the Santikos Bijou Theater.