This event presents new and startling perspectives on Mexico’s drugs war.

It features a rare UK screening of Mexican director Everardo González’ film La Libertad del Diablo (Devil’s Freedom, 2017) followed by a talk and Q&A with Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin.

Film

‘What do you get when you kill someone?’ a voice asks offscreen. ‘Power’ is the reply from a Mexican gang member who committed his first murder at the age of fourteen, still in his school uniform. A young girl remembers her mother being taken; a broken-hearted mother recognises her son’s shoes in a shallow grave; a young man recounts being rewarded with an Audi for his first execution as a teenager. The film hinges on a chilling device: first person accounts by victims and perpetrators all wearing a tightly-fitting flesh-coloured mask similar to that worn by burn victims. This provocative technique presents speakers in the same way, and in so doing draws attention to the complex nature of violence in Mexico, showing how it holds everyone in its grip. See the trailer here.

Talk

The film will be followed by a talk by, and Q&A with, Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin. Schwartz-Marin will talk about pain, death and the commodification of human bodies from both the perspective of the perpetrators of kidnappings and executions in Mexico City, and the families looking for their disappeared relatives around the country. In so doing, he will illuminate some critical standpoints through which to interrogate the narrative of violence in Mexico, and will talk about the way in which La Libertad del Diablo highlights some of these topics in its storytelling.

Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Exeter.

Dr Claire Moon is Associate Professor in Sociology at the LSE and leader of the Wellcome Trust funded project Human Rights, Human Remains.

Listen to the event podcast

The hashtag for this event is #LSEMexico