French photojournalist and documentary film maker Christian Poveda was murdered on September 3rd in El Salvador, as he drove back from filming in La Campanera, a poor, overcrowded suburb and a Mara 18 stronghold. Arrests were made this past week that a jailed Maras gang-leader, who had reportedly tried to extort money from Poveda, who had made a 2008 documentary about the gang named “La Vida Loca.”
This essay by Nanni Fontana is presented as a tribute to Poveda’s work, and the essay by Carlos Lopez-Barillas that follows intends to initiate a discussion on the changing landscape for documentary journalists.
Poveda was driving back from La Campanera, an overcrowded ghetto that is a stronghold of the Mara 18 gang, when he was apparently ambushed, The Times reported from London. Poveda’s body was discovered in a car in the poor, rural area.
At the press conference this morning we heard from Christian Poveda about his three-year work with the maras (gangs) that developed in the El Salvador communities of the L.A. suburbs and then were exported back to the country, where gangs had previously been unknown (image above; the maras are known for their facial tattoos)
