Feature Film
The film, currently in pre-production, is a feature length script that tells the story of an American detective who travels back to his hometown of Libertad, Mexico, to help exonerate his wayward brother who has been implicated for a string of murders. The script chronicles one man’s search for a truth that ultimately brings him face to face with the ghosts of his past and the keys to his future.
This story is much different from other border-themed projects, as our protagonist must return to his homeland of Mexico rather than the traditional tale of northern immigration. Furthermore, it is as much about a man owning up to his past and dealing with his own guilt as it is about the border.
Community Involvement
As we did with my previous feature film, we intend to have substantial community involvement at every level of production. A large percentage of the crew and cast will originate from indigenous communities and community elders, youth groups and civic organizations will be consulted prior to any filming. In terms of reference, we have already interviewed many “street kids” living in Nogales and Agua Preita and will offer them consultant work to help empower them and to make this a realistic portrayal of border life.
Cultural Discussion
On a cultural level, the film will explore the issues of identity and displacement, both of which are prevelant along the Mexican/American border. The film will explore these (and other) interpersonal issues and demonstrate how they contribute to the larger societal challenges.
PL Concept Poster by Jeni Stewart
In the town of Libertad, Mexico a young woman is mysteriously murdered. Looking to avert public outcry over the murder, the police descend on a housing project and arrest local junkie MARTIN VARGAS and charge him with the slaying. Facing certain death if convicted, Martin’s girlfriend sends out a plea for help to Martin’s estranged brother, Salt Lake City Detective FELIPE VARGAS. Felipe is stunned to receive news of the sibling he had left behind in Mexico some twenty years earlier.
Determined to find out the truth about his brother, Felipe travels back to the city he had vowed never to return. Swept up in the maelstrom of Felipe’s obsessive search for the truth are four people: EMILIANO, a street photographer who knows every nook and cranny of the seedy border town; DETECTIVE CHAVEZ, a ruthless detective determined to convict Martin Vargas at all costs; MARIA, an aid worker who questions Felipe’s motives at every turn; and ISANGO, a young street kid who witnessed the murder. When Felipe discovers that people within the police force were involved with the woman’s murder and subsequent cover-up, he becomes a target and is wounded while trying to protect the boy.
With Maria and Emiliano’s help, Felipe and Isango escape town and hide out in the Mexican countryside as Felipe recovers from the gunshot wound. It is there that Felipe begins to develop a relationship with Isango, who confides in Felipe the stories of his troubled past. Felipe urges Isango to return to the family he had run away from, as he never had a family of his own. Felipe soon begins to see in the boy a reflection of himself as a youth. This parallel haunts Felipe as he examines the nature of his past and the guilt he has carried with him since leaving his brother behind at an abusive orphanage when he fled to the United States.
Ultimately their hiding place is discovered and the police close in on their location. Felipe battles the rogue police that targeted him and, after an intense battle, brings down Detective Chavez and wins his brother’s freedom. His brother, bitter over the past and resigned to a life of drugs and poverty, quickly dismisses Felipe and returns to the underbelly of Libertad. Felipe is devastated. Despite everything he has done to make up for the past, there is nothing he can do to save his brother.
Felipe helps Isango reunite with his family only to find out the abusive and oppressive conditions that led to his initial flight. Vowing not to abandon the boy as he had done to his brother years ago, he offers Isango a chance to go with him to the United States.
The much-maligned and neglected street kids of Libertad, Mexico, ISANGO (10) and the closet thing he has to a brother, his protector and best friend, DIEGO (12) live out a destitute and precarious existence in cardboard shacks picking through garbage for sustenance and objects of value to then exchange for glue in order to forget their abysmal fate. Good-hearted waitress ELENA (27) is but one of the few who even dares to acknowledge and befriend these societal orphans.
But Elena has problems of her own, and her body ends up being dumped in the trash, with Isango, much to his shock and pain, as the sole witness. Libertad is already plagued with a serial killer with a taste for prostitutes, and police chief TOVARES and detective CHAVEZ need to produce results and clean up the streets before the governor comes to town. As luck would have it, drug dealer SAUL informs Chavez about a vicious wife beater and junkie named MARTIN VARGAS (29), who is found with the vic’s bloody pendant in his possession.
What’s worse for hard-knock, American detective FELIPE VARGAS (32) than coming home from a day’s work of putting away criminals and dealing with a separation from his wife, is receiving a call from his sister-in-law GUADALUPE (27) that his brother Martin is in a Mexican jail charged with murder. Vargas denies having a brother and hangs up. But clearly stunned, Vargas pulls out old photos of Martin and himself as young boys, and, after being suspended for roughing up a heartless drug dealer, he heads out to Libertad to investigate for himself and bring light to skeletons long hidden in his closet.
Vargas starts by paying a visit to Guadalupe, but she maintains that Martin is not capable of killing anyone and that he’s innocent. All Vargas has to go on are some journals Martin left behind.
Upon combing through the crime scene, Vargas runs into jaded photographer EMILIANO (52), who will do anything to sell a photo to the tabloids, including using a scanner to eavesdrop on police activity and bribing cops in order to be the first on the scene. Emiliano shares information about Elena and photos of the other vics, and in return, Vargas reveals himself to be Martin’s estranged brother of 20 years and pays Emiliano to use his connections with the police to see Martin.
But when Vargas surprises Martin in jail, Martin neither confirms nor denies killing Elena and thinks it a lost cause given the high-profile politics surrounding the case and his criminal record. Vargas takes up Martin’s case to Tovares and Chavez, pointing out how six of the women were prostitutes who were raped, sodomized and bludgeoned to death while Elena was not a prostitute and died of strangulation, to no avail however, as Tovares and Chavez have already decided that Martin is guilty.
When Vargas saves a drugged and hungry Isango from getting beaten by a waiter, Vargas and Isango bond. Vargas tells Isango about his brother Martin, and Isango confesses that he witnessed someone other than Martin dumping Elena’s body. Knowing they’re in immediate danger, Vargas takes Isango under his protective custody, only to be ambushed by Saul. Shot in the side, Vargas barely escapes to seek help from Emiliano, who then hides Vargas at his old house in the countryside. While Vargas recovers his gunshot, Emiliano tracks Elena’s last phone calls to unearth the shocking secret that she and Tovares were having an affair and that Tovares had her killed. While Emiliano goes back into town to scope out the scene, Vargas and Isango get to know each other better as Vargas admits to leaving Martin behind at the orphanage as a kid while promising to return for him later. Isango too admits to running away from an abusive father.
Chavez is waiting for Emiliano and tries to get him to give up Vargas by drudging up Emiliano’s past as an honest cop who testified against a gang and had his wife brutally murdered in return. But Emiliano won’t betray Vargas.
Vargas finally reads Martin’s journals, and they set him off as he returns to the orphanage where he and Martin were brutally abused as kids. Vargas ends his nightmarish walk down memory lane by burning Martin’s journals.
With the governor’s visit quickly upon them, Chavez has Saul pick up street kids and deliver them to him. Emiliano comes upon the gruesome scene of Chavez’s cleansing. Chavez blackmails Emiliano into giving up Vargas, or Chavez will kill more street kids he has in captivity. Emiliano walks away with the kids, but puts Vargas and Isango in grave danger.
Instead of killing Vargas as he was ordered to, a repentant Saul confesses to setting up Martin with Elena’s murder. Isango asks about Diego, who always protected him and even gave him a switchblade for his own protection. Saul confirms the worst, and Isango runs away.
Vargas returns to Libertad to settle the score with Tovares, but he underestimates Tovares’ ruthlessness as Tovares grazes Vargas with a bullet. Wounded again, Vargas makes a harrowing escape down a sewage tunnel, only to have Chavez catch up to him and start choking him to death. But not before Isango shows up to exact his revenge of Diego’s murder by stabbing Chavez to death with the very switchblade Diego gave him.
Vargas delivers on his promise of one day returning to save Martin by getting him out of jail. But Martin is ungrateful and tells Vargas to fuck off. Vargas reveals that he discovered through the journals that Martin did not kill Elena but that he did kill the other prostitutes. Nevertheless, Vargas lets him go. How can he turn in his own blood, after having abandoned him for so many years and feeling guilty for the way he turned out?
At a press conference, the governor officially charges Tovares with the murders and pontificates about public safety from corrupt officials and all criminals and the necessary protection of the youth and the innocent.
Still wanting to make amends for leaving his own brother behind, Vargas takes on a father-figure responsibility as he picks up a mourning Isango at Diego’s grave, and they head off together, both with another chance at a better life.
In terms of visual style, much of the film will feel edgy, narrow, tight and dark, and there will be a substantial shifts as the narrative moves between the urban areas and rural communities in Acts 2 and 3. As our protagonist becomes more conscious of his own flaws and his awareness increases, so will the film’s visual style.
I believe this project, aside from its unique hook and dramatic themes, is socially important as well. With the increase in globalism and programs such as NAFTA, the impact of on U.S. and Mexican border communities cannot be overstated. It is imperative that the American public begins to reflect on the harsh conditions that U.S. economic and political practices are creating, both socially and spiritually, and what the impact is on the residents of these border communities.
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Legal
Project Libertad is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Project Libertad may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
