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Narco Cultura

– by Shaul Schwarz

    1. Nonfiction

    2. Date Awarded: Winter 2011 & 2012

    3. Directors(s): Shaul Schwarz

    1. Producer(s): Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Todd Hagopian, APs: Juan Bertrán, Lauren Haber, EPs: Fred Warren, Robin Warren

    2. Company Credit: Parts & Labor, in association with Ocean Size Pictures

    1. Film Status: Completed

About the Film:

To a growing number of Mexicans and Latinos in the Americas, narco-traffickers have become iconic outlaws, glorified by musicians who praise their new models of fame and success. They represent a pathway out of the ghetto, nurturing a new American dream fueled by an addiction to money, drugs, and violence. Narco Cultura offers an explosive look at the drug cartels’ pop culture influence on both sides of the border as experienced by an LA narcocorrido singer dreaming of stardom and a Juarez crime scene investigator on the front line of Mexico’s Drug War.

About the Filmmakers:

Shaul Schwarz (Director) is an accomplished Israeli photographer, photojournalist and filmmaker. He began his career as a photographer in the Israeli Air Force and, after finishing his service, covered news in Israel and the West Bank before relocating to New York. Schwarz received two World Press Awards for his coverage of the conflict in Haiti in 2004. In 2005, he won the Visa D’or in Perpignan for his work photographing settlers from the Gaza Strip. His photos have appeared in numerous publications including Time Magazine’s Year In Pictures and Communication Arts.

Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy (Producers) established Parts & Labor, a production company dedicated to director-driven, collaborative filmmaking in 1994.  Parts & Labor has since produced 20 films, including Mike Mills’ Beginners, for which Christopher Plummer won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Also starring Ewan McGregor and Melanie Laurent, Beginners was released worldwide in 2011 by Focus Features and Universal.  Currently, Parts & Labor is in post-production on three films that will premiere in competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival: David Lowery’s film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and Ben Foster; photojournalist Shaul Schwarz’s documentary Narco Cultura; and Andrew Dosunmu’s second feature Mother of George. In 2012, they produced both Ira Sachs’s Keep the Lights On and The Loneliest Planet, by Julia Loktev, with Gael Garcia Bernal.

Festival & Award Highlights:

Sundance 2013 – World Premiere
Berlinale 2013
HotDocs 2013