Señorita Extraviada (Missing Young Woman) is the latest project from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lourdes Portillo. Her film investigates the disturbing 12-years-and-still-counting mystery of the disappearance, rape, and murder of more than 270 young women – mostly maquilladora workers – in the Mexican town of Juarez, just across the border from El Paso. All slender, dark-skinned, and long-haired, the woman began disappearing in 1990, all victims of brutal murders and mutilations, and the killer is still at large. Portillo’s film is a poetic meditation on the situation as well as a documentary look at the efforts of the families and police to solve the crimes, and the layers of corruption, confusion, fear, and desperation that cloud the ongoing investigation.
This article appears in August 2 • 2002.
