Toronto (Canada), Sep 15 (EFE).- Mexican filmmaker Santiago Esteinou has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which ends this Sunday, ‘La libertad de Fierro’, his second documentary about César Fierro, a Mexican who spent 40 years on death row in Texas until he was released in 2020.
In 2014, the director premiered the documentary ‘Los años de Fierro’ at TIFF, in which he presented the case of César Fierro and revealed how he had been sentenced to death in Texas for the 1979 murder of a taxi driver from El Paso solely thanks to a confession extracted under pressure and torture by the Mexican police.
And despite a successful premiere at TIFF, that film virtually disappeared from circulation.
In an interview with EFE at TIFF, Esteinou explained that Fierro’s lawyers, a major US firm that was acting selflessly and pro bono to secure his release, feared that the film would upset the Texas authorities and in retaliation they would decide to speed up his execution.
“In extremely difficult discussions between producers, the decision was made that, after its screening in Toronto, it would not be shown again, only with those commitments that had already been made. It has never been shown in a movie theater in Mexico,” explained the Mexican director.
Now, 10 years later, with Fierro exonerated and free, without the threat or danger of retaliation from Texas, Esteinou and the protagonist of the two documentaries have a second chance.
“I always had the illusion that Caesar would get out, and I always had the illusion of being present at that moment. I imagined that he would get out in a normal period of human history and that I would find him outside the prison,” explained the director.
However, Fierro was released in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic and when much of the world was in isolation.
Esteinou’s camera meticulously and tenderly captures Fierro’s shock when facing a completely unknown world after decades in a small cell, where he was held in solitary confinement in the Polunsky Unit maximum security prison.
“Between 1999 and 2009, Texas authorities decided to suspend any type of medication for Cesar. They took away the treatment that Cesar needed. He is a man who was in solitary confinement, a person who spent 23 hours a day in a smaller space than this room,” the director said.
For the past 10 years, Caesar had lost all hope and only left his cell every other day to bathe.
“He was a man who had been tortured by solitude. Basically, when he was subjected to this regime of solitary confinement, his mental health collapsed, as is logical,” Esteinou said.
Once free, Fierro has to learn how to use a mobile phone, since it is the first time he has seen one. Or to leave his room to interact with the rest of society and even what remains of his family.
Finally, Fierro has been able to see the two documentaries made by Esteinou, who reveals that César prefers the second one because the first one features his brother, who died before his release, which makes him very sad.
Now, what Fierro and Esteinou hope for is that, as requested by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, she will be offered an official apology and compensated so that she can pay for the medical treatments she needs and cannot afford.
“Give him the medicines for free. Fuck it, give them to him! Don’t take 10 years to respond. That’s what I think is the justice that can be tangible for Cesar today,” Esteinou said.
“Today, César’s life is the life of a man who already has his activities, who has a social environment that appreciates him, who takes tai chi classes, who has managed to build friendships, relationships with other people. What we have seen has been spectacular. César is an example of human resilience from any angle,” he concluded.
(c) EFE Agency
