LEARN
CARTEL LAND
JON SILBERG
CARTEL LAND Capturing Conflict and Conflicting Perspectives
An Autodefensas member stands guard in Michoacán, Mexico
F
ilmmaker Matthew Heineman didn’t set out to put himself in the middle of a standoff between the Mexican military and a heavily armed vigilante group. Nor did he intend to spend any time crouched inside a car taking fire from members of a drug cartel. But his work on the feature documentary Cartel Land took him into both of those situations—and more. The film was inspired by an article Heineman read about an American vigilante group in Arizona that militantly patrols the border with Mexico, which its members believe is far too penetrable, but as he prepared to investigate this story, he encountered another article—this one about the massive power of the Mexican drug cartel Knights Templar, and a local citizens vigilante group calling itself Autodefensas. Heineman came to realize his story needed to document the situation on both sides of the border. Cartel Land is a harrowing look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared
creativeplanetnetwork.com | 06.2015
At left, Tim “Nailer” Foley, leader of Arizona Border Recon
enemy: the Mexican drug cartels. Nine months of filming took him on patrols with American vigilantes on this side of the border and into cartelrun meth labs and hideouts of the Autodefensas in Mexico. Part of what makes Cartel Land so chilling is the fact that as his investigation progresses, it becomes less clear who’s really working for whom. How do we tell the heroes from the villains? As disconcerting as that may be for Cartel Land’s audiences, it was considerably more so for
Heineman. “I’m not a war reporter,” he says. “I’d never been in situations like that. Many times I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable, but I think this is a very important story to tell. I never felt I was just there to get this footage. Every moment played into the larger story.” Heineman shot the majority of the material in Mexico himself, with shooter Matt Porwoll gathering additional material or acting as a second (continued on page 56)
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