A Wolfpack Called Ernesto – The new documentary from Everardo González gets a UK release date

Sovereign has announced the release of the searing and important documentary A Wolfpack Called Ernesto in select UK cinemas on 23rd February 2024.

Everardo González, director of the 2017 documentary Devil’s Freedom, about the Mexican drug war (winner of 2017 Winner Amnesty International Film Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival), returns the subject of crime and criminals in A WOLFPACK CALLED ERNESTO, this time focusing on how the cycle of gun violence affects Mexican children.

In Mexico, 350,000 people have been killed over the last 15 years by armed criminals – 30,000 were under 18. The film follows the paths of the youths collectively named ‘Ernesto’ – victims as well as killers – who in a certain moment of their lives had access to a gun, used it to kill, and soon became an inextricable part of a crime organisation.

The innovative filming technique – using iPhones attached to the various subjects’ backs with a scorpion tail harness – gives the film a raw, intimate energy similar to Gasper Noe’s Enter The Void, and offers a glimpse into a rarely-seen underworld that has been too long ignored.

Intense and revelatory, A WOLFPACK CALLED ERNESTO is a truly important and remarkable film – underscored with a pulsating electronic soundtrack – a wake-up call to the staggering violence that leaves one person dead by firearms every 41 minutes. The film received its World Premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Everardo González is considered as one of the strongest voices in the documentary genre in Latin America. His filmography includes Pulque Song (2003), The Old Thieves (2007), The Open Sky (2011), Drought (2011) El Paso (2015), and Devil’s Freedom (2017), all screened and awarded at various festivals like Berlin, IDFA, Toulouse, Locarno, Montreal, BAFICI, Sarajevo, Guadalajara and Morelia. Everardo is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas. He is also the founder of the Mexican Documentary Net which looks for social, political and cultural impact for bringing documentary filmmakers better conditions for the future.