The award-winning Guerrilla Pictures, in association with Wikileaks, today announces the release of its WebDoc and iPad App to accompany its feature-length documentary, THE ENGINEER.
The documentary takes a disturbing look at El Salvador’s brutal gang conflict through the eyes of a man whose life revolves around murder. The WebDoc and iPad App take an in-depth and emotional look at the families whose lives have been affected by their loved ones being disappeared by the gangs MS-13 and 18 Street.
“This is a graphic portrayal and some people will be shocked, but this is the reality of what is happening in El Salvador,” said Mathew Charles, co-director of the film and lecturer in Television Journalism at Bournemouth University. “This is the level of violence that people live with on a daily basis in this part of the world.”
Israel Ticas is the only criminologist working in one of Latin America’s most dangerous countries: El Salvador. He’s made it his mission to find the hundreds of missing teenagers who have fallen victim to the country’s brutal gang conflict. The mothers of the disappeared affectionately call him The Engineer. But for The Engineer, death no longer evokes fear. Death is his every day, it has become his art. He calls the bodies he finds “friends” and his office walls are a macabre tribute to them all. Through the eyes of The Engineer this film offers a unique insight into the fight against gang murders in El Salvador.
“Documentaries tend to leave a lot of good material on the cutting room floor, and we couldn’t let that happen with this story,” said Ann Luce, digital producer and lecturer in Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University. “Too many lives were at stake, too many stories needed to be told. Our digital versions, for both the web and the IPad go beyond the documentary. They take you behind the scenes, into the lives of the people who have lost loved ones, who are still searching. Our digital versions tell their stories, in their words.”
The BU Journalism Research Group will host a special screening of The Engineer on Tuesday 26th November at 17:00-19:00 in W240.