Narco Cultura

Narco Cultura (2013) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Israeli-American photojournalist Shaul Schwarz. The film tracks a cultural shift that was accelerating along the US–Mexico border: narco-traffickers had become iconic outlaws, their exploits set to music and sold as a new mythology of success and escape.

Schwarz divides his lens between two cities on opposite banks of the same river. In Ciudad Juárez, he follows homicide investigators working through thousands of killings a year. Across in El Paso — statistically one of the safest cities in the country — he follows narcocorrido artists who sell out concerts singing tributes to the cartel figures behind those killings. The film doesn't editorialize; it places both realities side by side and lets the dissonance speak. The result is unsettling in a way that outlasts the runtime. Stream Narco Cultura (2013) online on iFILM.