In the end, Colosio's slaying indirectly helped pave the way for the PRI's ouster. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari chose a technocratic Cabinet minister, Ernesto Zedillo, to replace Colosio as candidate. And it was Zedillo who as president did what was long unthinkable in the PRI. He quickly recognized the opposition had won the 2000 election, squashing any attempts to rig the results.
The other new feature film, "Machete Language," tells of a fictional couple that witness police brutality after a clash with flower vendors in 2006 in Mexico State, where Pena Nieto was governor.
The documentary, "Gimme the Power" by the band Molotov, describes the history of rock and roll in Mexico and government censorship of musicians who tried to sing about the country's ills.
The documentary stretches back to a rock and roll festival that drew some 200,000 fans to the shores of Mexico state's Lake Avandaro in 1971. The signal of the live radio broadcast of the concert was cut after the audience began shouting "We have the power! We have the power!" PRI-controlled governments largely banned rock concerts well into the 1980s.
Molotov formed in the 1995, a year after Colosio's death, and its lyrics often criticized the government as well as Televisa, the country's dominant television network, frequently in obscene language. Under the PRI, radio stations played the group's less-critical songs and bleeped out the cuss words. Molotov's music videos were shown only during off-peak hours, said drummer Paco Ayala.
"We realized that was happening ... because we were touching a lot of people who had the power to curtail the band's freedom of expression," he said.
Documentary director Olallo Rubio said he hopes the film motivates young people find a way to express their frustration about their country, as Molotov did with its music.
"You can make demands in a thoughtful way without having to go to Congress and beat the ... out of lawmakers who don't show up or who fall asleep when they show," added Molotov singer and bass player Micky Huidobro.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
















Reader Comments ( )