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The body of French documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda was found in a car in Tonacatepeque, a poor rural area a few miles from San Salvador on 3^rd September 2009.   The 53-year-old had been shot numerous times in the head, leading police to believe that gang members had ambushed him as he drove back from filming in La Campanera, a ghetto stronghold of the feared Mara 18 gang.

The murder shocked the people of El Salvador.   A statement issued by President Mauricio Funes said he was shocked and devastated by the murder, and ordered a thorough investigation.

Poveda first travelled to El Salvador in the early 1980s to cover its civil war as a photographer for Time magazine.   He returned to the country in the 1990s to make documentaries about Salvadoran gangs.

His last film, La Vida Loca (Crazy Life) focused on the violent lives of a number of members of Mara 18, several of whom were killed or imprisoned during filming.   While acknowledging the terror spread by such organised gangs, Poveda’s film criticised both the grinding poverty that drives youths to crime and the heavy-handed tactics used by police in dealing with them.

The Salvadoran gangs were part of a massive criminal network stretching from Los Angeles – the home of many Salvadoran ex-patriots – to Central America, with estimates of their numbers as high as 30,000.   Their illegal activities included drug running, robberies and extortion.

La Vida Loca was due to be released in France on 30^th September 2009.

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