This video shows the context in which Mexican photographers and journalists work on a daily basis. Included are four stories that chronicle and link historical violence in Mexico. The video begins in the Yucatan peninsula in the town of Tihosuco, Quintana Roo, a village where Mayans, enslaved by Creoles, rose up in the caste war of 1850. Sixto Poot, a Mayan priest, tells the story of Tihosuco and its resettlement by Mayan hunters years after the war.The story then shifts to the current war on drugs in Michoacan, where ranchers and hunters organized themselves into self defense groups to fight criminals and the government. Bernardino arrives in this moment and begins to photograph and document the war and resulting deaths in Acapulco, one of the cities most impacted by the drug war. The video then continues with the story of Enrique Juarez, a funeral flower seller in Ciudad Juarez, who beautifies victims’ graves. This is a short film told in a nonconventional way and is part of the long term project, "La Ley del Monte,” based on the idea of Mexican revolution that states,“The laws of the land always belong to the most powerful.”
The original 3-screen version was designed to be viewed as a video installation at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City on July 2017.
Camera, audio and direction: Mauricio Palos
Newspaper printing video: Yollotl Alvarado
Editing and audio design: Yollotl Alvarado and Alejandro Palomino
15 ’06 I Digital I Color.
July 2017
