Following it’s its World Premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Sovereign has today announced the release details for the Everardo González‘ (Drought, El Paso, Devil’s Freedom) shockingly brutal, immersive and vital documentary A Wolfpack Called Ernesto (Una jauría llamada Ernesto) which will be screening in select UK cinemas on 23rd February 2024.
González, director of the 2017 documentary Devil’s Freedom, about the Mexican drug war (winner of 2017 Winner Amnesty International Film Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival), returns the subject of crime and criminals in A Wolfpack Called Ernesto , this time focusing on how the cycle of gun violence affects Mexican children.
In Mexico, 350,000 people have been killed over the last 15 years by armed criminals – 30,000 of whom were under 18. Gonzalez’ documentary follows the paths of the youths collectively named ‘Ernesto’ – victims as well as killers – who in a certain moment of their lives had access to a gun, used it to kill, and soon became an inextricable part of a crime organisation.
The pioneering filming technique – recording with iPhones attached to the backs of various subjects by means of scorpion-tail harnesses – lends the film a raw, intimate energy akin to Gasper Noe’s Enter The Void, and provides a window into a seldom-seen underworld that has been ignored for too long.
Shocking and revelatory, the documentary is a truly vital and remarkable film – underscored by a pulsating electronic soundtrack – a wake-up call to the devastating violence that leaves one person dead by firearms every 41 minutes.
A WOLFPACK CALLED ERNESTO WILL BE RELEASED IN SELECTED UK CINEMAS ON 23rd FEBRUARY 2024
