Dark Suns

Julien Elie / Canada / 2018 / Czech Premiere / 154 min.

synopsis

The murders, which have steadily been on the rise since the 1990s, form the subject matter of this epic documentary depicting the horrific scale of violence in a crime-stricken, Mexican society riddled with corruption. The ghost-like appearance of the overall picture is reinforced by the chosen black-and-white material and the division of the film into chapters, capturing with almost anthropological consistency a series of testimonies from the bloody history of the country. The sun shines on the horror: the search for the kidnapped, raped, and murdered women and missing students, the murder of a photojournalist who pointed out the links between politicians and criminal cartels, the uncovering of mass graves on private sites.

biography

Julien Elie was born in Montreal. He stayed in Rwanda in the 1990s and made a documentary based on his experiences there entitled Celui qui savait (2001), in which he dealt with the political crimes that took place in the country. In his film, Le dernier Repas (2003), he focuses on the death penalty, specifically "the journey to the heart of Huntsville, Texas, known as the execution capital of the USA."