Alexandra Halkin, documentary producer and founder of the Chiapas Media Project, will present a lecture and screening of her new film, Living Juarez, on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 4:10 p.m. in the Kirner-Johnson Building Bradford Auditorium. The lecture, titled “Mexico’s Failed Drug War: Collateral damage and U.S. drug consumption,” is sponsored by the Religious Studies Department and is free and open to the public.
Directed by Halkin, Living Juarez examines the dark side of Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs in the city of Juarez which, due to its 7,000 drug-related deaths since 2008, has been called the deadliest city in the world. The documentary tells the poignant story of life in the Juarez neighborhood of Villas de Salvárcar, where a group of ordinary citizens is involved in an organized campaign to end the arbitrary and frequent abuses committed by the occupying armed forces against Juarez civilians and youth.
Halkin received her B.F.A. from the University of Illinois in 1985. In 1998, she founded the Chiapas Media Project (CMP) as a resource for marginalized indigenous communities in Southern Mexico to create their own media. Since its founding, CMP has produced and distributed over 6,000 indigenous produced videos that have been featured at universities, museums, and film and video festivals worldwide. As international coordinator for CMP, Halkin has received numerous prestigious fellowships and grants, including a Fulbright Award for U.S. Scholars in 2007 for Media Studies in Mexico and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004.
