From dusk to dawn El Velador accompanies Martin, the guardian angel who each night watches over the extravagant mausoleums of Mexico’s most notorious Drug Lords. In the turmoil of Mexico’s bloodiest conflict since the Revolution, ordinary life persists and quietly defies the dead.

A quietly composed documentary from filmmaker Natalia Almada, The Night Watchman was shot entirely in the confines of Mexico’s drug heartland. Almada’s film elaborates on modern-day violence, the power of an ordinary life, and the fragile boundaries between victim and perpetrator.