“Cartel Land” opens today at UNL’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. Also showing for a second week is “Mistress America.”
With unprecedented access, “Cartel Land” is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy — the murderous Mexican drug cartels.
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wrecked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Altar Valley — a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley — Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
Filmmaker Matthew Heineman embeds himself in the heart of darkness as Nailer, El Doctor and the cartel each vie to bring their own brand of justice to a society where institutions have failed. From executive producer Kathryn Bigelow, “Cartel Land” is a chilling, visceral meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between good and evil.
At the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Heineman received both the Directing Award and Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the U.S. Documentary competition.
In “Mistress America,” Tracy is a lonely college freshman in New York, having neither the exciting university experience nor the glamorous metropolitan lifestyle she envisioned. But when she is taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke - a resident of Times Square and adventurous gal about town - she is rescued from her disappointment and seduced by Brooke’s alluringly mad schemes.
For more information, including showtimes, go to https://theross.org.
