Kingdom of Shadows, Bernardo Ruiz, 2015, 74 minutes
Bernardo Ruiz takes an unflinching look at the hard choices and destructive consequences of the U.S.-Mexico “drug war,” weaving together the stories of a U.S. drug enforcement agent on the border, an activist nun in violence- scarred Monterrey, Mexico, and a former Texas smuggler, to reveal the human side of an often misunderstood conflict that has resulted in a growing human-rights crisis that only recently has made international headlines.
Presented by Participant Media in association with Boiling Pot and Quiet Pictures.
“Many documentaries have chronicled the drug war in the U.S. and Mexico, but few have humanized it as poignantly as Kingdom of Shadows… [It] is more observant than crusading…rooted in first-rate journalism.” — Slackerwood | March 21, 2015
“‘Kingdom of Shadows’, produced through Participant, stands out for its measured look at deep structure.” — IDA | March 27, 2015
South by Southwest, March 2015, World Premiere
Full Frame Documentary Festival, April 2015
Ambulante, April 28-29, 2015, Mexico Special Preview
Amnesty International Mexico, May 7, 2015, Mexico Special Preview
Bernardo Ruiz is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His directorial feature debut, “Reportero” (POV, 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). Ruiz founded Quiet Pictures, a New York-based production company, in 2007. Through Quiet, he Executive-Produced the two part bilingual PBS series, “The Graduates/Los Graduados” for PBS’s Independent Lens. He is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in film and was awarded the Rockefeller Bellagio residency.
Pamela Yates is a Co-founder and Creative Director of Skylight, a company dedicated to creating feature length documentary films and digital media tools that advance awareness of human rights and the quest for justice by implementing multi-year outreach campaigns designed to engage, educate and activate social change. She is the Director of the Sundance Special Jury award winning When the Mountains Tremble; the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning Witness to War; and the Director of State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism, which has been translated into 47 languages and broadcast in 154 countries. Her film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, was used as key forensic evidence in the Ríos Montt genocide trial in Guatemala. She is currently working on “500 Years”, the third in the Guatemalan trilogy.
