Sarah Minter

In the eighties, different gangs arose in the suburban and marginal areas of Mexico City. This is a documentary about some of those gangs and the people who filmed them.

Miguel and Johnny know each other since childhood. They are dedicated to skate and have fun. To earn easy money and continue skating, they sell their own blood to a clandestine contact in a hospital. The activity becomes business until a large transaction is not as they imagined.

In 1987, the film director and video artist Sarah Minter, made the documentary exercise Nobody is Innocent, a film that portrayed the daily life of the youth gang Los Mierdas Punk, from and residents of Ciudad Neza, State of Mexico. More than 20 years later, Minter returns to the streets where the tape was recorded to reconnect with the original members of the band, who today are around forty years old and still live in the same places.

In 1987, the film director and video artist Sarah Minter, made the documentary exercise Nobody is Innocent, a film that portrayed the daily life of the youth gang Los Mierdas Punk, from and residents of Ciudad Neza, State of Mexico. More than 20 years later, Minter returns to the streets where the tape was recorded to reconnect with the original members of the band, who today are around forty years old and still live in the same places.

In 1987, the film director and video artist Sarah Minter, made the documentary exercise Nobody is Innocent, a film that portrayed the daily life of the youth gang Los Mierdas Punk, from and residents of Ciudad Neza, State of Mexico. More than 20 years later, Minter returns to the streets where the tape was recorded to reconnect with the original members of the band, who today are around forty years old and still live in the same places.

In 1987, the film director and video artist Sarah Minter, made the documentary exercise Nobody is Innocent, a film that portrayed the daily life of the youth gang Los Mierdas Punk, from and residents of Ciudad Neza, State of Mexico. More than 20 years later, Minter returns to the streets where the tape was recorded to reconnect with the original members of the band, who today are around forty years old and still live in the same places.

In 1987, the film director and video artist Sarah Minter, made the documentary exercise Nobody is Innocent, a film that portrayed the daily life of the youth gang Los Mierdas Punk, from and residents of Ciudad Neza, State of Mexico. More than 20 years later, Minter returns to the streets where the tape was recorded to reconnect with the original members of the band, who today are around forty years old and still live in the same places.

Julia Barker, an over-worked, middle-aged Texas woman is haunted by psychic visions which drive her to New York in search of the Room.

A woman dissolves

A woman dissolves

Part-improvised and starring a cast of nonactors led by real-life punk Ana Hernandez (as Alma, which also means “soul”), ALMA PUNK traces the tortuous path of a young riot grrl from the Mexico City punk scene as she moves north to Tijuana and, eventually, towards the United States. It confidently breaks with the rules of staging docudrama with an unsparing look at Alma’s love life, unfakeable scene bohemianism and extensive location footage of Mexico before NAFTA and after the 1985 earthquake. “I feel like no one is supporting me,” Alma says. “Guys want everything and give nothing in return. Isn’t that so?” Like NADIE ES INOCENTE, this film uses the intimacy and flexibility of video (this time, 3/4″) to wring innovation in the editing room, this time to give Alma a similarly alienated and jittery headspace.

Part-improvised and starring a cast of nonactors led by real-life punk Ana Hernandez (as Alma, which also means “soul”), ALMA PUNK traces the tortuous path of a young riot grrl from the Mexico City punk scene as she moves north to Tijuana and, eventually, towards the United States. It confidently breaks with the rules of staging docudrama with an unsparing look at Alma’s love life, unfakeable scene bohemianism and extensive location footage of Mexico before NAFTA and after the 1985 earthquake. “I feel like no one is supporting me,” Alma says. “Guys want everything and give nothing in return. Isn’t that so?” Like NADIE ES INOCENTE, this film uses the intimacy and flexibility of video (this time, 3/4″) to wring innovation in the editing room, this time to give Alma a similarly alienated and jittery headspace.

Part-improvised and starring a cast of nonactors led by real-life punk Ana Hernandez (as Alma, which also means “soul”), ALMA PUNK traces the tortuous path of a young riot grrl from the Mexico City punk scene as she moves north to Tijuana and, eventually, towards the United States. It confidently breaks with the rules of staging docudrama with an unsparing look at Alma’s love life, unfakeable scene bohemianism and extensive location footage of Mexico before NAFTA and after the 1985 earthquake. “I feel like no one is supporting me,” Alma says. “Guys want everything and give nothing in return. Isn’t that so?” Like NADIE ES INOCENTE, this film uses the intimacy and flexibility of video (this time, 3/4″) to wring innovation in the editing room, this time to give Alma a similarly alienated and jittery headspace.

Part-improvised and starring a cast of nonactors led by real-life punk Ana Hernandez (as Alma, which also means “soul”), ALMA PUNK traces the tortuous path of a young riot grrl from the Mexico City punk scene as she moves north to Tijuana and, eventually, towards the United States. It confidently breaks with the rules of staging docudrama with an unsparing look at Alma’s love life, unfakeable scene bohemianism and extensive location footage of Mexico before NAFTA and after the 1985 earthquake. “I feel like no one is supporting me,” Alma says. “Guys want everything and give nothing in return. Isn’t that so?” Like NADIE ES INOCENTE, this film uses the intimacy and flexibility of video (this time, 3/4″) to wring innovation in the editing room, this time to give Alma a similarly alienated and jittery headspace.

"Kara", in an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns him and to flee from drugs and his own frustration, sets out on a train journey. On his trip he nostalgically recalls all kinds of scenes with his gang the "Punk Shits" in Ciudad Neza.

"Kara", in an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns him and to flee from drugs and his own frustration, sets out on a train journey. On his trip he nostalgically recalls all kinds of scenes with his gang the "Punk Shits" in Ciudad Neza.

"Kara", in an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns him and to flee from drugs and his own frustration, sets out on a train journey. On his trip he nostalgically recalls all kinds of scenes with his gang the "Punk Shits" in Ciudad Neza.

"Kara", in an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns him and to flee from drugs and his own frustration, sets out on a train journey. On his trip he nostalgically recalls all kinds of scenes with his gang the "Punk Shits" in Ciudad Neza.

"Kara", in an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns him and to flee from drugs and his own frustration, sets out on a train journey. On his trip he nostalgically recalls all kinds of scenes with his gang the "Punk Shits" in Ciudad Neza.

Starring Maribel Mejia as a young woman who goes on a road trip reeling from a string of heartbreaks and bad relationships, Minter’s early collaboration with her then-partner Rocha feels more apiece with the French New Wave influences of a successive generation. (She spoke admiringly about Godard in an interview, but described her later ideas as more directly influenced by Dziga Vertov.) There isn’t a ton of evidence of the staccato editing that would mark NADIE ES INOCENTE, but one prolonged sex scene – in which a furiously edited sequence of sound effects takes center stage over abstracted imagery – can only hint at the individual liberation to follow.

As she has sex with her husband, she starts to fantasize about cheating on him.