Señorita Extraviada

TRT: 76 minutes, in Spanish and English with English or Spanish subtitles, Color, copyright: 2001

Señorita Extraviada (“Missing Young Woman”) unfolds like the unsolved mystery that it examines—the kidnapping, rape and murder of over 350 young women in Juárez, Mexico.  Visually poetic, yet unflinching in its gaze, this haunting documentary unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed these brutal murders to continue just south of the US-Mexican border. Relying on what Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources—the testimonies of the families of the victims—Señorita Extraviada documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy.  The result is a shocking and brutal portrait of Ciudad Juárez, “The City of the Future.”

"She [Lourdes Portillo] won a 1986 Oscar nomination for Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a film about political dissidents in Argentina, studied AIDS and Latinas in Vida and explored the legacy of Tejano singer Selena in Corpus. But nothing she's done has been as wrenching as Señorita Extraviada…'" 

— Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

"Señorita Extraviada is further proof that she [Lourdes Portillo] is one of the most important filmmakers chronicling the Latino experience today." 

— Mike McDaniel, Houston Chronicle

“…a powerful film that bears witness to the humanity of the victims…and a powerful testament to the bravery of the women who have refused to be intimidated and have dared to speak out, organize and protest. Señorita Extraviada is a cry of outrage and a call to activism.” 

— Marcia Gillespie, Ms. Magazine

SCREENINGS

• Lourdes Portillo, with film Señorita Extraviada in conversation at Sorbonne University, Paris, with Katia Morales (PhD student at IRCAV, curator of the program), and Anna Dodier (Panorama of Colombian Cinema): “Cinéma Féministe de l'Amérique Latine, Festival des Cultures: WATCH HERE

ARTICLES

• COOLT.com, Spanish culture website: "Ciudad Juárez, hoy igual que ayer" by Philipp Engel (June 2, 2021), READ HERE

• The Seattle Times: “Disappearing Daughters,” by Corinne Chin and Erika Schultz (March 8, 2020), READ HERE

• The Washington Post: “Hundreds of women disappear in Ciudad Juárez each year. A smartphone app could help,” by Kyle Swenson (July 10, 2017), READ HERE

• The New York Times: “Wave of Violence Swallows More Women in Juárez,” by Damien Cave (June 23, 2012), READ HERE

• San Francisco Chronicle: “The disappeared: Lourdes Portillo's wrenching documentary on the killings of young Mexican women in Juarez exposes government incompetence (August 17, 2002), READ HERE

• The New York Times article about Señorita Extraviada: “Who Is Killing the Young Women of Juárez? A Filmmaker Seeks Answers,” by Mireye Navarro, READ HERE

• The Austin Chronicle’s movie review of Señorita Extraviada," READ HERE

POSTER