Documentary Filmmaker Shot Dead in El Salvador
September 4th, 2009Via: CNN:
A French filmmaker who recently finished a documentary about a violent street gang in El Salvador was found shot dead in the town of Tonacatepeque, about 10 miles northeast of the capital city of San Salvador, authorities said.
Christian Poveda, 52, was shot at least four times in the face, according to local reports.
Poveda’s documentary, “La Vida Loca,” which follows the lives of members of the Mara 18 street gang, had been screened at a handful of film festivals and is slated for wider release later this month. His body was found in an area controlled by that same gang, local reports said.
A motive of Poveda’s murder Wednesday was being investigated, National Civil Police Director Carlos Ascencio Giron said in a statement. Citing the pending investigation, police did not immediately give any details, but Ascencio Giron said that the homicide and organized crime divisions of his department were handling the case jointly with the attorney general’s office.
Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said he was “very shocked” by the news of the murder.
According to a statement by the president’s office, Poveda first arrived in El Salvador in the 1980s to cover the civil war as a photojournalist. He left to report from other war zones, but returned to research and film the gangs in El Salvador.
Poveda on Wednesday was traveling in his car after filming in a town called Soyapango when unknown assailants intercepted him and then shot him, according to the statement.
