Cartel Land is a riveting, on-the-ground documentary that follows parallel stories of a group of US and Mexican vigilantes. The Arizona Border Recon is a group of volunteers run by exsolider turned vigilante Tim Foley, who protects the Arizona border from Mexican drug and people smugglers.
On the other side of the border, Dr José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician leads the Autodefensas, a group of everyday people who have taken the law into their own hands to rid the area of ruthless drug cartels.
It’s a thoroughly engaging, thought provoking and revealing documentary from producer and director Matthew Heineman. This Academy Award nominated documentary screened in the 2015 NZIFF, and premieres on Rialto Channel on Thursday 21st April.
Ahead of its television premiere, Rialto Channel caught up with Matthew Heinman to talk about why he risked his life for this documentary, and his love of the documentary genre.
Cartel Land is a riveting, on-the-ground documentary that follows parallel stories of a group of US and Mexican vigilantes. The Arizona Border Recon is a group of volunteers run by ex solider turned vigilante Tim Foley, who protects the Arizona border from Mexican drug and people smugglers.
On the other side of the border, Dr José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician leads the Autodefensas, a group of everyday people who have taken the law into their own hands to rid the area of ruthless drug cartels.
It’s a thoroughly engaging, thought provoking and revealing documentary from producer and director Matthew Heineman. This Academy Award nominated documentary screened in the 2015 NZIFF, and premieres on Rialto Channel on Thursday 21st April.
Ahead of its television premiere, Rialto Channel caught up with Matthew Heinman to talk about why he risked his life for this documentary, and his love of the documentary genre.
Rialto: You must feel like you’ve been talking about this film for a while now?
MH: I have been for a while now, but it’s been a good journey.
Rialto: Cartels, drug smuggling, border control, the vigilante movement – all such relevant topics today – are you still involved in conversations around these topics, or do you get to the point whereby you let the film speak for itself and move on?
MH: I’ve been speaking about it for a year at this point, so I’ve been behind the film and out with the film, and speaking about the film for a long time. I think I am at a point now where the film is carrying on with out me, so I am nearing the end of my tenure.
Rialto: Are you interested in the pursing what might happen next?
MH: Of course, I risked my life and invested so much time to tell this story. You can’t just turn off. I care deeply about the people we filmed with and the people of Mexico and so it’s something I definitely keep tabs on a lot.
Rialto: Did you have any idea about what you were getting into when you began making a film about Tim Foley?
I had some idea, but I definitely had no idea how deep I was going to get, the footage that I’d get, the access that I’d get and the way the story would twist and turn and evolve over time. I had a general sense of the potential of the film but I had no idea where it would take me. I’m not a war reporter, I’ve never been in any situations like this before, but the film lead me into shootouts between the vigilantes and cartel … places I could never have dreamed of being in.
Rialto: Where there times when you thought to yourself, what am I doing here?
MH: Of course, I’m human and these are not natural environments particularly to find yourself in.
Rialto: How welcoming were people to you on both sides of the border? How easy was it to gain their trust?
It’s hard to summaries in one sentence. Each story, each character, each moment, each second has it’s own saga as to how it went down and how it happened. I didn’t want to talk about these issues from the outside with outside experts or government officials. I wanted to put myself right in the middle of the action and follow the story that unfolds before me. It’s a very difficult way to make a film, and so much of that was gaining the trust of my subjects that allowed me to get into these deep dark corners of this murky world of vigilantism.
Rialto: Initially the film was about Tim Foley – how did the film develop and change from that original idea?
MH: I first heard about this story through an article about Tim and his group of vigilantes. I spent about 7 months gaining his trust and I spent about 4 months filming with him and then I heard about the other vigilantes in Mexico in an article my father sent me. Right when I read that article I knew I wanted to create this parallel portrait of vigilantes on both sides of the border and the film shifted dramatically. When I first started filming in Arizona and shooting in Mexico, it seemed like a very simple hero/villain story - a sort of classic Western sense of guys in white shirts playing against guys in black hats, and over time theses lines would change and became every more blurry, and I became obsessed understand who these guys were and what they were about.
Rialto: There are times when all the characters, seemingly good or bad, are sympathetic in some way and that surprised me.
MH: The goal is to not put people in nice neat little boxes but to reveal in the complexity of humanity, and especially the complexity of vigilantism and play on that.
Rialto: Congratulations on your BAFTA and Oscar nominations and Directors Guild Award – you must be thrilled with the way the film has been received.
MH: It’s been a dream journey with the film and I’m really honored by all the wonderful reception that film has received and that it’s open peoples’ eyes to a war that they might otherwise not get to see. Hopefully, instigating a really important conversation and I think that’s one of the things I love about the way people are reacting to the film; a thousand different people take a thousand different things away from the film and that’s wonderful.
Rialto: Does being an Oscar nominee make it easier to get your next film made?
MH: It’s always a struggle but it’s opened up a million doors for me - just this whole journey and this whole process, and I feel extraordinary fortunate. I’m working on a number of projects now and I feel very luck to do what I do, to tell people’s stories and I look forward to continuing to do so.
Rialto: Do you have ideas for documentaries all the time?
MH: I’m constantly inspired by things, there are a number of things I’m working on that I can’t really talk about right now, but I’m constantly inspired by a lot of different things. It’s one of those cool things about doing what I do, that I get to dive into a new world every year or two, and explore that world and discover that world and the people that inhabit it.
Rialto: So how do you know when one idea is better than another?
MH: It is like saying, how do you know when you’re in love or when you should get married, you just feel it. It’s a very instinctual thing. The films that I’ve made have all been based on instinct and things that have grabbed me, and are stories that I have to tell…Hopefully I will always feel that way. If you loose that then you should stop doing this – it’s not glorious work and you have to really believe in what you’re doing, especially when you’re obviously risking your life to do so. I think that burning desire to question and explore is a part of what we do.
Cartel Land screens on Rialto Channel, Thursday 21st April at 8.30pm.