Listen to Greg Berger on NPR’s “On The Media” about “Narco-Mania!”

It isn’t easy to find humor or hope amid the tragedy of Mexico’s disastrous Drug War.

Known in Mexico as “Gringoyo,” filmmaker and journalist Greg Berger decided in 2009 that communicating the root causes of Drug War violence to as broad an audience as possible could be done best by filing satirical news reports that lampoon the intellectual authors of the war while telling victims’ stories with depth and reverence.

Gringoyo’s absurd comedies also tell the story of Mexico’s growing citizens’ movement against the Drug War

-In “Narco-Mania,” the title piece of this collection, widows of Drug War victims chase four men from the U.S. Embassy through the streets of Mexico City in a shot-by-shot recreation of the title sequence of The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.”

-A U.S. activist makes a living pawning free meals from Mexican social movements in “Hungry For Justice,” only to find himself transformed by a chance encounter he witnesses between Drug War victims and survivors of the infamous Acteal massacre in Chiapas State.

-In the city of Cuernavaca, whose tourist economy has been battered by the Drug War, the sons and daughters of U.S. citizens benefitting from the war find reason to party and celebrate in “Spring Breakers Without Borders.”

The DVD features nine short films, produced by Narco News TV and The School of Authentic Journalism and directed by Greg “Gringoyo” Berger.

The films are an effective and accessible teaching tool for introducing students to the critical issues surrounding Mexico’s Drug War and the movement against it.