Reportero

A veteran reporter and photojournalist chronicles the interconnected stories of a rapidly changing city on the Mexican-American border.

Reportero 01
Series
POV
Premiere Date
January 7, 2013
Length
60 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
Diversity Development Fund
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2013 News and Documentary Emmy Awards-Outstanding Informational Programming—Long-Form
    • Bernardoruiz
    Producer/Director

    Bernardo Ruiz

    Bernardo Ruiz is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His directorial feature debut, Reportero (POV, PBS 2013) about attacks on the press in Mexico, was nominated for a 2014 News and Documentary Emmy® Award and premiered at Full Frame (U.S.), IDFA (Europe) and Ambulante (Mexico). New York Magazine called it “a powerful reminder of how journalism… Show more often requires immense amounts of physical and psychological bravery.” His latest feature documentary, Kingdom of Shadows was called “unforgettable” by The New York Times and premiered at SXSW and IDFA. Ruiz founded Quiet Pictures, a New York-based production company, in 2007 in order to produce independent documentaries. Through Quiet, he created and Executive-Produced the two part bilingual PBS series, The Graduates/Los Graduados for Independent Lens. The series, about the lives of six Latino and Latina students, was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and co-produced with ITVS. In the fall of 2015, Ruiz was a “filmmaker in residence” at the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Full Frame Film Documentary Festival and the International Documentary Association's Enterprise Fund. Show less

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    The Film

    Reportero follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media. In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when former President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime groups. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced?

    An Official Selection of the 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and IDFA. A co-production of Quiet Pictures and ITVS. Funding provided by the Ford Foundation, the Sundance Documentary Fund and Cinereach. A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting.

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