Lest we forget! Tec graduate documents femicides in Mexico on Netflix

Cover photo: Twitter / @scopiomx

After four years of investigation in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team, Carlos Pérez Osorio, a graduate of Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City, directed the documentary Las Tres Muertes de Marisela Escobedo (The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo).

“We want Marisela Escobedo’s story to be heard everywhere. It’s important for us that everyone knows the story. Luckily, we’re now seeing a lot of people outside Mexico watching it and that focuses more attention on the issue of femicides and gender violence.

“I think it’s something that needed to be done. Laura Woldenburg and I have been working on this on different fronts for a while and we can now join forces in a documentary, which we hope a great many people will see,” said the director.

The reason the Tec graduate made this documentary, which can be seen on the Netflix platform, was for people to understand the importance of the issues in Mexico that lead to femicides.

“Although it’s an issue that hasn’t been addressed, that hasn’t been discussed enough, it’s been a serious problem all this time.

“I think it’s a good moment to really understand the terrible importance of femicides and really address them as they should be addressed. Steps should be taken to prevent them. Public policy should be designed for justice and institutions to make them stop, to really combat the impunity of this type of crime,” he added.

Laura Woldenburg, the documentary’s producer, says that the country is up in arms at all the violence against women and she hopes that this work will contribute to change in Mexico.

“It’s a sample of the social mood we’re experiencing in Mexico. People are up in arms about it, people are very angry. We hope that this catharsis we’re going through on social media will be channeled into specific actions, in which we see some real change.

“The correspondent who helped us on the local investigation in Chihuahua wrote to us recently to say that there had been a unanimous vote for the word femicide to appear in the penal code in Chihuahua, which was long overdue. These kinds of actions, in which there’s a real change to the system, are what make our work worthwhile,” she said.

Marisela Escobedo was an activist who was killed while fighting for justice for the death of her daughter in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, after the courts acquitted her self-confessed murderer.

Advice to future colleagues

Carlos Pérez Osorio, whose career is focused on social issues, had this to say to those who are still studying for a degree at Tec de Monterrey.

“I think that people who are interested in making documentaries have to get close to their subjects. They have to get close to the stories, they have to experience them, they have to live with the topic they’re talking about, which in my case is people.

“Tell your own stories. Look for places to show them even if they’re very small, but dive into the stories you want to tell. Investigate them, and little by little, you’ll find your own voice. It’s not easy. It takes time,” he said.

The disappearance of Fidecine

Laura Woldenburg expressed her concern over the disappearance of the Fund for Cinema Investment and Incentives (Fidecine).

“I’m really worried about the current budget cuts because they don’t just affect science. They also affect these mechanisms that were already pretty scarce and weak to begin with,” said the producer.

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