This document provides strategies for filming a documentary about an unrecognized war in a context with high levels of impunity and danger to journalists. It recommends portraying the victims and their personal stories rather than perpetrators or the "enemy", telling the story from the present rather than just reconstructing past events, and depicting "the enemy" as a systemic problem rather than individuals. It also outlines practical actions like filming outside the country, using interior locations, avoiding identifying information, and working with civil organizations to reduce risks.

1. Some strategies to film
a non-recognized war
Alicia Calderón

2. The context

3. The context
• We don’t know who is “the enemy”
• Corrupted officers. Non-reliable
sources.
• High levels of impunity. Non-reliable
investigations.
• Difficulty to detect “the battle field”.
In urban and rural contexts.
• 47 journalists murdered between
2010 and 2016. Only 3 convictions.

4. Strategies to speak-up

5. Strategies to
speak-up
• To portrait the victims (the
mothers), not the perpetrators
• The disappeared is portrayed
through the mother’s search;
it’s not about their innocence
or culpability.
• Tell the story from the
present; not just a
reconstruction of past events
• A victim: every person without
effective access to justice

6. Strategies
to speak-up
• The story is not about the
criminals or the Army’s “bad
boys”; its about the pain,
exclusion, love, struggle and
personal conversion.
• We don’t try to uncover who
are the criminals; it’s not a
film about innocents vs
criminals
• In the film, “the enemy” is
structural. It doesn’t have a
name or a face; it’s a system.
• We distance ourselves from
journalism to portrait
personal stories; no need to
“balance” information.

7. Practical actions to
reduce risks

8. Reducing risks
• Filming outside of Mexico
(Washington)
• Use interior locations; few
exteriors
• Avoiding small towns;
interviewing in hotels
• Extremely careful edition. No
names!
• Not publishing information given
by the mothers that may put them
in danger (or the team)

9. Reducing risks
• Using very discrete recording
equipment
• Never traveling at night
• Working with civil
organizations
• Not using cellphones to talk
about sensitive information