Backyard
Officer Blanca Bravo arrives in Juarez, Mexico — a grim nexus of corporate colonialism and sexual tourism — to investigate a rash of killings targeting female migrant workers. But with no help from the locals, bringing the responsible parties to justice becomes a frustrating exercise. As Bravo rails against indifference and local corruption, she finds herself on a collision course with Mickey Santos, a Mexican mogul with a taste for young prostitutes.
From the archive
Synopsis Sometime in 1996, a terrifying phenomenon surfaced in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In this now-infamous city, young women are regularly murdered. Most often, no arrests are made or charges laid for the killings. This ongoing tragedy is a painful stain on Mexican history and has been the subject of numerous films, articles and books. In 2001, the Festival showcased Lourdes Portilloâs Missing Young Woman, in which the filmmaker attempts to give voice to the many victims and to understand how these awful crimes take place. Backyard, by Carlos Carrera, is a fictional account of the atrocities that continue to occur in Ciudad Juárez. We follow police officer Blanca Bravo (an astonishing performance by Ana de la Reguera), who is sent to Ciudad Juárez from Mexico City to investigate a series of murders of young women. Most of the victims are low-paid labourers who have been drawn to Ciudad Juárez by the possibility of work at American-owned factories, or maquiladoras, that sprang up on the Mexican side of the border after the NAFTA agreement went into effect. Blanca discovers an incompetent and complicit police force and an indifferent local population, embodied by entrepreneur Mickey Santos (a chilling performance by Jimmy Smits). Presented as a fiction, Carreraâs film is all the more moving given that the events he recounts are based on true stories and touch upon the various theories that have been put forward as to the cause of the murders. Hypotheses range from a serial killer, to drug cartels, to the more abstract pains of globalization, and it is easy to see how any of these factors could be at work in this Mexican town, which is a backyard to El Paso, Texas. Through his film, Carrera is able to denounce culprits who have never been brought to justice. However, the most devastating truth he illuminates is that these murders continue to happen because they have become commonplace. Today, some men kill women in Ciudad Juárez simply because they can. âtiff.net Backyard Mexico 2009 122 Min Color English * Currently 3.6/5 Stars. * 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 Become a Fan | I want to watch this DIR Carlos Carrera PROD Isabelle Tardan SCR Sabina Berman DP Martin Boege CAST Ana de la, Asur Zágada, Marco Pérez, Ivan Cortes, Jimmy Smits MUSIC Fernando Corona Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), São Paulo
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Backyard (2009) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. No signup, no payment and no advertising interrupts playback. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Carlos Carrera
- Starring
- Ana de la Reguera, Asur Zagada, Marco Pérez, Iván Cortes, Jimmy Smits, Alejandro Calva, Joaquín Cosío, Sayed Badreya
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