Guardian video I worked on as a fixer.
Rex Tillerson promotes US ties during Mexico trip
Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, struck a conciliatory tone during a visit to Mexico, saying the neighbouring countries had an opportunity to upgrade their economic relationship.
Read the complete article at the Financial Times.
BBC interview about the fireworks explosion in Tultepec, Mexico
Interview for the BBC radio show “Good Morning Scotland.”
Five Mexicans to watch in 2017
The past year was a rough one for many Mexicans.
The list of difficulties and indignities was long, from the rise to the US presidency of confirmed enemy Donald Trump to the end-of-year shock of gasoline prices soaring by as much as 20 percent. The political and economic outlook will have many Mexicans bracing for another hard year ahead. Yet international and local instability also present opportunities for change, both politically and culturally.
Faced with a difficult climate, here are five Mexicans looking to make a real impact in 2017.
Politics
Margarita Zavala
The Mexico City lawyer and politician has already announced her desire to become Mexico’s first female president. Zavala, who is the wife of former President Felipe Calderon, hopes to become the candidate for the conservative National Action Party (PAN).
Yet as Hillary Clinton discovered in 2016, experience as a former first lady can be as much of a hindrance as a help. Zavala will need to run a well-considered campaign if she is to distance herself from the bloodshed that was unleashed as a result of her husband’s military strategy against drug cartels.
During her visit to last November’s Guadalajara International Book Fair, a protestor whose father had been murdered in 2007 appeared at her side with a placard reading: “Your husband took the life of my father, do you want to take mine?”
The presidential hopeful took the protestor’s cellphone number and offered to speak to him at a later date, showing she can think on her feet. Yet the incident also demonstrated that she needs to take full advantage of 2017 if she is to distance herself from the past and position herself for the presidency.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
No other figure in Mexican politics divides opinion as much as former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. To many, the leader of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) is Mexico’s fut
ure savior. To others, he is a demagogue, hell-bent on importing the kind of economic and social chaos that has ravaged Venezuela. Antonio Garza, the former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico may have been closest to the truth, when he described him in 2006 as a left-leaning centrist who had little in common with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
Lopez Obrador has already run two failed campaigns for the presidency, in 2006 and 2012. Yet Peña Nieto’s historically low favorability ratings are likely to take another tumble in 2017. His meeting with Trump earlier this year was a grave mishandling of the situation, viewed by some Mexicans as borderline treason. Soaring petrol prices triggered by his energy reforms are likely to encourage Mexicans to look to a figure outside of the political establishment.
The next presidential election is not until 2018, but opinion polls suggest that Lopez Obrador will start with an advantage. With Trump in the White House, and Peña Nieto on the back foot, this year will offer important opportunities for Lopez Obrador to portray himself as an agent of badly-needed change.
Entertainment
Kate del Castillo
The soap opera and film star Kate del Castillo started 2016 in very hot water. The actor, who is known for playing a female drug kingpin in the “Queen of the South” series, found herself under investigation for her connection to captured cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and was forced to file an injunction against her arrest.
Del Castillo was thrust into the international spotlight after she arranged a meeting between the fugitive drug boss and the actor Sean Penn. She is now accused of accepting illegal funds from Guzman for her tequila company.
While the actor cannot currently travel to Mexico, she is finding success from Los Angeles, by starring in the political drama “Ingobernable” (“Ungovernable”) which is due for release on Netflix in March. Del Castillo plays Irene Urzua, the headstrong wife of Mexico’s president, who is closely based on Angelica Rivera, the current first lady.
Long associated with Televisa, the Mexican television channel that heavily promoted Peña Nieto when he was a candidate in 2012, the series represents a departure for Del Castillo. It is a chance to simultaneously take aim at the president, the government and her former employers, all from the comfort of exile.
Jonas Cuaron
The young director is up for an Academy Award for best foreign-language picture in 2016, for his second feature “Desierto,” a thriller about a group of migrants stalked by a racist sniper at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Jonas Cuaron, whose previous work includes co-writing his father Alfonso’s space odyssey “Gravity,” has explicitly linked his film to Trump’s negative rhetoric about migrants.
The film’s international trailer features Trump’s infamous speech about Mexican migrants as the voice-over for a massacre. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” Trump says, as the vigilante takes aim at border-crossers in the desert.
While the film received a mixed critical reception, the director’s publicity campaign in the lead-up to its release has helped increase his profile. At a press conference, Cuaron encouraged Mexicans to upload ironic photos of themselves to Facebook and Instagram, holding placards with Trump’s descriptions: “rapist,” “criminal,” “I’m bringing drugs.” He promised to print them and send them to Trump’s offices.
Literature
Valeria Luiselli
The 33-year-old Mexican author had a hugely successful 2016. She won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Best Fiction for her second novel “The Story of My Teeth,” – her critically acclaimed tale of an eccentric protagonist searching for 
new teeth. She appeared frequently in the Guardian and the New York Times and was featured in Vogue along with her husband, the Mexican writer Alvaro Enrigue.
Her latest non-fiction title, “Los niños perdidos” (“The Lost Children”), is scheduled for release next year. The project arose from her experience working as a translator for child migrants in the immigration courts of New York.
The book takes its structure from a 40-question survey that serves as the basis for the legal proceedings determining whether the children are allowed to stay in the United States. Through these questions, Luiselli explores the present legal difficulties and the violent pasts of youngsters who have undertaken the perilous journey north.
“The children interviewed say reticent words” writes Luiselli. “Words full of mistrust; born of buried fear and constant humiliation.”
Twitter: @Stephentwoodman
Posted in Culture
Tagged Amlo, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Jonas Cuaron, Kate del Castillo, Margarita Zavala, Netflix, Valeria Luiselli
Leave a comment
Mexicans face new year shock at petrol pumps
Mexico’s government has announced the biggest increases in petrol prices in almost two decades in a move that risks a backlash against its efforts to liberalise the country’s energy market.
Read the complete article at the Financial Times.
Women fall victim to violence in Mexico’s decade-old war on drugs
MEXICO CITY, Dec 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Denisse Velasco has been suffering from acute anxiety since spring, when she narrowly escaped being abducted from a busy street in Guadalajara, Mexico.
She was waiting at a bus stop one morning when a man jumped out of a taxi and tried to force her inside. Velasco suspects it was a drug trafficker intent on kidnapping her for ransom.
Read the complete article at the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Mexico’s drug war as seen through the eyes of children
Guadalajara, Mexico – One image captures a fierce shoot-out between rival drug cartels, with several lifeless bodies slumped on the street in pools of their own blood. Another shows a gang member hurling a grenade at a police officer. A third features a collection of Kalashnikov and Armalite assault rifles, the weapons of choice for Mexico’s cartel hitmen.
These are not photographs, but children’s drawings depicting the harsh realities of Mexico’s decade-long drug war. They uncover the mental scars borne by a generation exposed to extreme violence, many of whom distrust government forces and admire narco-culture.
Elementary school students produced the drawings as part of an investigation into the effects of the conflict on children in northern Jalisco, an impoverished area plagued by violent crime.
Read the complete article at Al Jazeera English.
‘I tracked down my mother in the Amazon rainforest’
My parents had a very unconventional marriage: my father is an American anthropologist and my mother is a member of the Yanomami tribe living in a remote corner of the Amazon. They were betrothed according to the Yanomami system in 1979, while my dad was living with the group in Venezuela.
Read the complete article at the Financial Times.
‘I rode “The Beast” as research for my film’
Diego Quemada-Díez as told to Stephen Woodman
Back in 2002, I was living by the railroad tracks in Mazatlán on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
I started talking to migrants who were passing through town and I was deeply moved by their stories. It struck me that they were heroes who were putting their lives in great danger for the sake of their families. I wanted to share their stories. I hoped that by giving voice to migrants through film I could help generate dialogue, empathy and understanding.
The screenplay to my feature film “The Golden Dream” was based on over 600 testimonies I had gathered over the course of seven years.
I decided to concentrate many of those testimonies into a group of three teenagers traveling on the freight train through Mexico that migrants call “La Bestia” (The Beast).
Juan, the lead character, sets off on the journey believing in the western model of progress and the American Dream. He’s accompanied by Chauk, a Tzotzil Mayan boy who speaks no Spanish. I wanted to portray Juan learning from Chauk, and adopting his different outlook towards people and the environment. People always want to change indigenous thinking and behavior, so I wanted to portray this process happening the other way around.
The dynamic was largely based on my own experience of learning from Chak, an indigenous Mexican who is a very good friend of mine.
Through the third character Sara, I introduced the drama of migrant women and sexual exploitation. Several studies show that the majority of female migrants are raped en route to the United States. During my interviews, one woman told me that when she was a little girl her mother disguised her in order to allow her to continue the journey. I was shocked by that detail and I decided to include it. Sara wraps a bandage over her breasts and hides under a baseball cap. In an attempt to survive, she has to negate her identity and become someone else.
We filmed in chronological order so the actors would actually have an experience instead of simply acting a part. I learned that method from my mentor, the British director Ken Loach.
For the seven-year research process I traveled through Mexico visiting various migrant shelters. I also went to Guatemala and the United States.
In Los Angeles, I visited various deportation centers for children. They call them homes, but they are much closer to prisons.
I also visited meat-packing factories in Denver, Colorado. I wanted to include them in the film because it’s dangerous, tough work that only migrants will do.
Researching the film was very dangerous at times. On a few occasions, I survived being kidnapped or shot. In Sinaloa, a drug dealer called Vitamina thought I was filming him. He approached me, put a gun to my head and said he was going to kill me. Finally he let me show him footage which convinced him I was not filming him at all. He eventually let me go and said next time I better talk to him first.
I learned that day that you always have to talk to all the locals and let them know what you’re doing.
I included a similar scene in the film as a kind of homage to Vitamina. If he hadn’t have let me go, I wouldn’t be here today.
Later, when we filmed the movie, I already knew which areas to avoid. We would always hire locals and let everyone know what we were doing. That way, the filming process went quite smoothly.
Getting the film funded and accepted was no easy task, but I kept persevering. Finally, I was invited to Cannes to present the project to different industry professionals at L’Atelier. In the end, people were impressed by the amount of research and the photographs. I was finally able to present the film at Cannes a few years later.
I’ve had to push for the finished film to be distributed in the United States and it still hasn’t been seen as much as I would like. I think it is vital to show the point of view of migrants right now.
Globalization has taken jobs abroad, so I understand that people want to protect their livelihoods and local economy. But it’s important that people realize that migrants are not criminals.
Twitter: @Stephentwoodman
Posted in Interviews
Tagged Diego Quemada-Díez, La Jaula de Oro, Mexico, migrants, migration, The Beast, The Golden Dream
Leave a comment
