'Presumed guilty', the most viewed Mexican documentary in history

With almost two million viewers, 'Presumed Guilty' has become the most viewed documentary in the history of the Mexican cinema box office. The story addresses how the life of José Antonio Zúñiga, a young CD seller in a flea market in Iztapalapa, changed radically when he was detained without an arrest warrant.

Alleged guilty, the documentary film directed by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith is sweeping the Mexican box office, already approaching two million viewers.

The story addresses how the life of José Antonio Zúñiga, a young CD seller in a flea market in Iztapalapa, changed radically when he was detained without an arrest warrant.

The success of this documentary, unprecedented in Mexican cinema, must be sought in the genuine, real and raw testimony of injustices that are experienced, day by day, and that the directors of the film have so masterfully captured. The controversy surrounding its release, clouded by a federal judge granting provisional protection to stop the film's exhibition, has also contributed to the expectation generated.

This feature film has shaken the conscience of citizens, transcended the public life of the country, and became a wake-up call for Mexicans.

Synopsis

Alleged guilty is the heartbreaking story of a man who was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In December 2005, in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, Toño wished that God would take him out of his desperate situation. “Kill me or put me in jail,” he remembers pleading. A week later he was arrested by three judicial officers and taken to the Reclusorio Oriente, a high-security prison that houses a third of the prisoners in Mexico City.

Later, a judge who never attended the trial hearings sentenced him, without any evidence, to twenty years in prison for the murder of a man. Toño had never met the victim. Two law students from the University of California, Berkeley, became filmmakers, following Toño for two years and documenting his fight to regain his lost freedom and dignity. The film exposes the contradictions of a judicial system in which we are all guilty in advance and it is practically impossible to prove otherwise.