Presumed Guilty (Spanish: Presunto Culpable) is a documentary following Antonio Zúñiga, a person whom was falsely convicted of crimes. It holds the box office record for documentary in Mexico, previously held by Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911. According to The Economist, this is "by far the most successful documentary in Mexico's History. " The plot of the film is the attempt by two young Mexican attorneys to exonerate a wrongly convicted man by making a documentary. The film was released theatrically at about the same time the Oscar nominated films such as Black Swan and The Kings Speech were being shown on cinema screens in Mexico. It surpassed both of those films at the box office. The film was televised by Televisa on Channel 2 in the fall of 2011.
Synopsis
Two lawyers struggle to free a man, Antonio Zúñiga, who has been wrongly convicted by the Mexican judicial system. Zúñiga was arrested on charges of murder and convicted largely on the testimony of one man. Zúñiga was told by authorities “You did it and that’s it”. Zúñiga was given the sentence of 20 years in prison for a crime that was impossible for him to have committed. Three witnesses explained that he was at his place of work during the time of which he was accused of murder. However, the man was a close relative of the victim who had no firm evidence against Zúñiga, while the accused produced several witnesses able to place him far from the scene of the crime at the time of the murder. Despite this, Zúñiga was found guilty, and when lawyers Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete learned about his case, they agreed to help him. Hernández and Negrete cautiously advised Zúñiga, knowing that many case like his had failed before him and they were fearful of providing Zúñiga and his family with too much hope. Before leaving for graduate school in Berkeley, CA, Hernández and Negrete advised the family to go public with this case- they felt it was their best shot at pressuring the Mexican judicial system to admit their error and free Zúñiga. After it was revealed that the lawyer appointed to represent Zúñiga did not have a valid license to practice law, authorities grudgingly agreed to a new trial, but with the same judge, Héctor Palomares Medina, presiding. This judge showed little interest in evidence that Zúñiga was falsely convicted. Battling an arrogant judge, uncooperative witnesses and a legal system riddled with corruption, Hernández and Negrete found that it was easy to prove Zúñiga's innocence, but hard to get the authorities to acknowledge this fact. “The conviction was eventually overturned in 2008 after the filmmakers persuaded the judges hearing the appeal to watch the videos. Zúñiga was immediately released" Presumed Guilty was a selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.
, 1h34 GenresDocumentary ThemesFilms set in Africa, Films about racism, Documentary films about racism, Documentary films about law, Documentaire sur une personnalité, Documentary films about politics, Political films Rating69% In the town of Orania, 800 white Afrikaans people form an independent community. Their town is private property (bought in 1990) and they live independently from multicultural South Africa. Since the fall of apartheid, increasing crime levels, unemployment and social pressure has led to a small migration of people towards the town. In the town, the residents concentrate on preserving their shared culture. Residents stay in the town for their cultural ideals or for the town's safety and opportunities, and others stay out of desperation.
Winners introduces us to WIN, a project set in place by the Spanish Red Cross in Liberia, with a program to integrate vulnerable women in Monrovia into the social and labor fields. More than fourteen years of wars have relegated these women to the lowest rung of the social ladder of the already fragile Liberian society, turning them into the perfect victims of a gender violence that could well become an institution.