Juarez uneasy in Hollywood's lens

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The killings of hundreds of women in this border city have become the focus of Hollywood's camera lenses, with Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas and Minnie Driver starring in movies about them.

The slayings have been the subject of scores of books, songs, documentaries and TV series. But victims' relatives worry the films will exacerbate Juarez's already tattered image and do little to pressure authorities to solve the crimes.

"Bordertown," with Lopez and Banderas, began production in New Mexico last month. In coming weeks, production will move to the border city of Nogales, where a crew has already built a shantytown resembling Anapra, a Juarez neighborhood where many of the victims lived.

In the film, co-written and directed by Gregory Nava, Lopez plays a Chicago-based reporter sent to Mexico to investigate the killings and who meets a young factory worker who survived an attack. Banderas also plays a U.S. reporter.

"The Virgin of Juarez," stars Driver, who plays a Los Angeles-based reporter sent to investigate the killings, and Ana Claudia Talacon, who portrays a survivor of the vicious attacks. The film was completed last year but has yet to be released.

Authorities say 340 women have been slain over the past 12 years in Juarez, a city of about 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas. But human rights groups say the number of women killed is much higher.

At least 100 of those deaths appear to fit a pattern where a young, slender woman was sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert outside Juarez. Some have speculated that they were the work of a serial killer, but investigators have denied that.

Ciudad Juarez garnered international attention after victims' relatives, backed by Mexican and international activists, started expressing outrage over the alleged corruption, ineptitude and indifference of investigators. The relatives complained that prosecutors seemed to be more interested in closing cases using fabricated evidence than unearthing the truth. A few men have been convicted in the killings, and dozens more have been arrested. But many suspects have been released after judges threw out their cases, and some have claimed to have been tortured into confessing.

Activists and victims' mothers acknowledge they don't know a lot about the films and say they were never approached by those involved in the productions.

They fear the films will concentrate on gruesome details instead of bringing attention to the sloppy police work and the lack of results in the investigations.