Narcotic Films For Illegal Fans

Dos carteles (2000), starring Mario Almada

Babel, Amores perros, Silent Light, Y tu mamá también,

Pan’s Labyrinth

Amores perros

Sinaloa, Land of Men; A Violent Man; The Dead Squad,; Her Price Was Just a Few Dollars; Coca Inc.; I Got Screwed by the Gringos; Weapons, Robbery, and Death;

Robbery in Tijuana

Chrysler 300

The Black Hummer, The White Ram, The Red Durango

The Gray Truck

The Band of the Red Car

Y tu mamá también Part 2

Dos plebes 5, An Expensive Gift 4, Chrysler 300 Part 3

arriba

Watch The Vice Guide to Narco Cinema on The Vice Guide To Everything tonight at 11/10 central on MTV.

Narcocinema actor Mario Almada

Vice: Have you made any movies lately?

Mario Almada:

How many movies have you made?

Hence your winning the Guinness record.

What’s the difference between working in 35 mm and in videohomes?

And do you usually play the good guy or the bad guy?

The Band of the Red Car

Who watches your movies?

Is it true that a lot of these movies are shot in the US?

The Band of the Red Car

And is that because the millions of Mexicans living in the US are really the market for your movies?

The Death of the Jackal

The Revenge of the Jackal

You just mentioned Mexican songs. There’s a very close relationship between narcocorridos [drug ballads] and the videohome industry, right?

The Band of the Red Car

You made other movies based on songs by Los Tigres del Norte, right?

The Golden Cage, The Gray Truck,

Three Times Wetback

The Gray Truck

I love the lyrics of that song. “It was a gray truck, with California plates/The truck was tuned out/Pedro Marquez and his girlfriend had tons of dollars to buy drugs/Their destination was Acapulco, that was their plan/Enjoy their honeymoon and on their way back carry 100 kilos of the fine stuff/Back in Sinaloa, Pedro tells Inez/‘Someone is following us, you know what you have to do/Take out the machine gun and make them disappear.’” And in the end, they crash into a train and die. I love that movie too.

The Golden Cage

Now, I’ve heard that some of these movies are financed by…

Have you ever met any big drug dealers? Any capos?

Operation: Marijuana

What do you think of mainstream Mexican films being made today?

Y tu mamá también

Will you continue making movies?

Watch The Vice Guide to Narco Cinema on The Vice Guide To Everything tonight at 11/10 central on MTV.

Narcocinema producer/actor/director Jorge Reynoso

Rico, Picante y Sabroso, el Sabor de Jorge Reynoso

Vice: What’s the difference between making films and making videohomes?

Jorge Reynoso:

So how much money and how much time does it actually take to make these movies?

That’s incredible. What do you think of the Mexican film industry? What’s the difference between the mainstream Mexican films that are known internationally and the kind of movies that you make?

How so?

So you are saying that Mexicans celebrate their drug dealers?

Have you ever met any big drug dealers while making your movies?

The Mafia Trembles

La Mafia 1, La Mafia 2,

La Mafia 3

Watch The Vice Guide to Narco Cinema on The Vice Guide To Everything tonight at 11/10 central on MTV.

La Hummer negra (2005), starring Jorge Reynoso

Yeah, in the 80s he was one of the biggest drug dealers in the world. I remember that when they captured him in Costa Rica, he actually offered to pay off the foreign debt of the country if they let him go, and he said the same when he was extradited to Mexico.

Do the police ever come and ask you where you get the information to write your movies?

Did you start out making mafia movies, or were there other genres for you first?

It’s interesting that a lot of these movies are Mexican productions but are shot in the US. Why shoot there instead of Mexico?

Where do you sell the majority of your movies?

You’ve mentioned narcocorridos. It’s very interesting how this music has changed over the years.

A lot of these kind of movies are based on popular narcocorridos, but I know that in the past three years, there have been over 25 violent killings of musicians, like Valentín Elizalde and Sergio Gómez, attributed to the drug cartels, supposedly for singing in the wrong territory or about the wrong people. Do you ever get in trouble for making a movie based on the “wrong” song?

There are a lot of recurring stars in your movies, but it seems that non-actors play a lot of the characters too.

Watch The Vice Guide to Narco Cinema on The Vice Guide To Everything tonight at 11/10 central on MTV.