El Sicario, Room 164
Crime & Punishment
•
1h 20m
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi and Charles Bowden • Documentary • 2011 • 84 minutes
The term sicario goes back to Roman Palestine, where a Jewish sect, the Sicarii, used concealed daggers (sicae) in their murders of Romans and their supporters. In modern language, a sicario is a professional killer or a hit man.
In an anonymous motel room on the U.S./Mexico border, a Ciudad Juarez hitman speaks. He has killed hundreds of people and is an expert in torture and kidnapping. He was simultaneously on the payroll of the Mexican drug cartels and a commander of the Chihuahua State Police. There is currently a $250,000 contract on his life and he lives as a fugitive, though he has never been charged with a crime in any country. With his face obscured by a black mesh hood, he tells his story to the camera inside the very motel room he once used to hold and torture kidnapped victims. Aided only by a magic marker and notepad, which he uses to illustrate and diagram his words, the sicario describes, in astounding detail, his life of crime, murder, abduction and torture.
Up Next in Crime & Punishment
-
My Worst Enemy
Directed by Mehran Tamadon • Documentary • With Mehran Tamadon, Zar Amir Ebrahimi • 2023 • 82 minutes
“What are you thinking? You’re thinking, ‘This is cinema. I’m sowing seeds to create a dialogue.’ Maybe you’ll be able to open a dialogue. A dialogue without any outcome.” — Zar Amir Ebrahimi
F...
-
Where God is Not
Directed by Mehran Tamadon • Documentary • 2023 • 112 minutes
Taghi, Homa and Mazyar were arrested and interrogated by the Iranian regime. All three testify with their bodies, with their gestures and tell what it means to resist, what it means to break. Is there any hope that the torturer will o...
-
Stealing Rodin
Directed by Cristóbal Valenzuela Berríos • Documentary • 2017 • 80 minutes
In the style of Exit Through the Gift Shop, Stealing Rodin is a critical and humorous statement about Art and the market around it. The documentary traces the story of Luis Onfray’s artistic and criminal act. In 2005, the...