Guatemala City has lived under the control of the Maras for more than two decades, its gangs known for elaborate tattoos and a business model built on drug and human trafficking, extortion, and contract killing. Journalist Thierry Gayton spent months filming at close range with gang members themselves, documenting their daily lives and crimes on camera, something almost no outside filmmaker has managed to do. He also embeds with the citizen militias that have sprung up where police are either corrupt or simply outmatched, following the checkpoints and armed patrols residents now run themselves, sometimes with their own resort to violence. The film moves between these two armed camps without flinching from either, showing extortion demands, tattooed gang members speaking on camera, and militia patrols moving through neighborhoods the state has effectively ceded. The result is a firsthand look at a city where authority has fractured into competing forces, filmed at real personal risk, with the Maras' two-decade grip on Guatemala City as the throughline connecting every scene.