Dark Suns

Soleils Noirs

DIRECTOR(S): Julien Elie   COUNTRY: Canada   YEAR: 2018   LANGUAGE(S): Spanish, English   SUBTITLES: English   RUNNING TIME: 154 min

SETION: International Forum 2019

SCREENINGS

Saturday, 05.10., 4.00 pm, kinoeins

SYNOPSIS

An elusive evil has taken over Mexico. Twenty years ago, the screams of young women echoed in the northern regions of the country, victims of unprecedented misogynistic fury. Behind the volcanoes of the capital, hundreds more suffered the same fate in recent years. Elsewhere, farmers, students as well as travelers disappear from roads while several journalists are gunned down. This climate of impunity opens the door to all abuses, and the entire country lives in terror. Some raise their voices, denouncing and investigating, while others, armed with shovels and trying to avoid ambushes, look for the missing people. As testimonies and discoveries add up, the truth slowly emerges.
Shot in stark monochrome, Dark Suns chronicles the hundreds of murders of women, journalists, students, and activists in Mexico since the 1990s, and the insidious culture of cartel violence and state corruption behind them. Spanning the notorious femicides in Ciudad Juárez at the northern border to the murders of journalists in Veracruz in the south, director Julien Elie draws on the testimony of determined investigators, family members, journalists, priests, lawyers, and activists, tracing a path of organized and unpunished criminality that involves drug and human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and collusion with the governments on both sides of the border.

JULIEN ELIE

Julien Elie made his film debut in 2002 with The Last Meal, his first documentary about the death penalty in Texas. Several years later, after many travels in Mexico, he decided to do a film about the surge of violence in this country. Dark Suns is his first film in fifteen years.

FILMOGRAPHY

The One Who Knew Too Much (2002), The Last Meal (2003), Dark Suns (2018)

SCRIPT: Julien Elie   PRODUCER: Julien Elie   CAMERA: Ernesto Pardo, François Messier-Rheault   EDITOR: Aube Foglia   MUSIC: Mimi Allard

PRODUCTION: Cinéma Belmopán, División Del Norte   WORLD SALES: Luke Brawley, Dogwoof

WEBSITE
https://www.cinemabelmopan.com/