Corruption in the Mexican justice system comes into vivid focus in this close-up account of a campaign to free a young breakdancer serving a 20-year sentence for a murder he could not possibly have committed.
If this much effort has to be expended to exonerate a man so clearly innocent, what kind of medieval horror must the rest of the system be?
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
Presumed Guilty 2009
Presunto culpable
Corruption and incompetence in the Mexican justice system come into vivid focus in this close-up account of a campaign to exonerate a young breakdancer, Antonio Zúñiga, who is serving a 20-year sentence for a murder he could not possibly have committed. Injustice may be systemic in Mexico: until very recently guilt, not innocence, was presumed and there is a sprawling bureaucracy of law enforcement and prosecution with a vested interest in maintaining its 90 per cent conviction rate. Two Berkeley-based lawyers crusading to change this join forces with filmmaker Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, NZIFF08) to expose the gross unfairness for all to see: it’s a clue to the complacency of the bored, contemptuous officials that they actually allow cameras into the courtroom. The encounter is a shockingly intimate one: Zúñiga and his lying accusers eyeball each other, only feet apart with just prison bars to separate them. The human cost of institutional corruption could not be clearer – nor our anxiety for a just outcome more pressingly felt. — BG