
Murder Capital of the World: Living in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
San Pedro Sula, Honduras, has held the title of world's most murderous city, and this film follows three men who navigate that violence from different sides. Priest and furniture maker Daniel Pacheco tries to talk young men out of the gang life and off the killing path, work that puts his own life at risk. TV crime reporter Orlin Castro covers the nightly body count and admits he dreams of a quieter existence somewhere else. A hitman named Matathan describes his work bluntly and claims he wants to leave it behind for a religious life, though Pacheco, who knows him well, doubts he means it. Dutch-American filmmaker Loretta van der Horst, born in Honduras herself, gets close enough to the drug cartel and police violence to make the danger tangible on screen. The film does not resolve into a clean moral story; it stays with the contradictions of men trying to survive, profit from, or atone for a place where, as Pacheco puts it, not valuing your own life makes killing easier.