Baltazar López directed the dramatized scenes in El Salvador, with a Salvadoran cast. Justin Mills filmed Carlos Mauricio’s testimony in Washington, D.C.
Written and directed by Baltazar López Produced by Justin Mills With Oscar Suncín Sofía Pérez Ortiz Leandro Sánchez Arauz Jorge Ávalos Ana Rosa Padilla Abiezer Ventura Francisco Yazbek Director of photography Michael Potter Original music Sarah Plant Location sound Paolo Hasbún And the testimony of Carlos Mauricio
Writer and director
An actor, playwright and former director of El Salvador’s National Theater, born in 1952. He left the country in 1980, as the war took hold, for Mexico and then Nicaragua. For this film he wrote the script from Mauricio’s testimony, found the cast and directed on location.
Producer and editor
His mother is Salvadoran, and he had been recording the testimonies of people who lived through the war when he filmed Carlos Mauricio’s in Washington. He took it to López, a longtime family friend, produced the film and edited it himself.
Director of photography
The American cinematographer shot the dramatized scenes on a RED Epic camera with Leica lenses, among them the sequence at the edge of La Puerta del Diablo.
Led by Oscar Suncín
Oscar Suncín plays Carlos Mauricio, a performance that won him Best Actor at the Diamond Film Awards in 2019, with Sofía Pérez Ortiz as María de los Ángeles and Leandro Sánchez Arauz as Antonio, in a Salvadoran cast.
Oscar Suncín carries the dramatized half of the film as Carlos Mauricio, from the family table to the interrogation room. In January 2019 the Diamond Film Awards, based in Battipaglia, Italy, named him Best Actor for the role.
In the script, Mauricio’s older brother is only “Hermano Mayor.” Jorge Ávalos gave him a name, Rufino, and modeled him on a neighbor who kept a small shop. He dressed for the part in secondhand clothes and a pair of his father’s shoes, thirty years old.
