Entretierra

Entretierra opens with an extended shot of two sun hats on a bag, bobbing along on a seat in a moving train. In voice-over we hear a man talking about the day he was kidnapped and killed, and how his mother went looking for him.

More than 112,000 people have gone missing since 2006 due to the devastating drug war in Mexico. Family members now conduct well-organized, armed expeditions to search for their loved ones—combing garbage dumps, digging in the soil and exchanging information and tips.

A black screen suggests we’re deep underground, with the dead. The elements of the soundscape are muffled, distorted and threatening. A dog starts barking, someone shouts, and in the distance we hear a siren. Documentary maker Emanuel Licha uses these techniques to evoke “a sound space between life and death, between presence and absence,” a space where the missing can tell their story and hear the living search for them.