MOVIE • 2007

Children of the War

The Birth of the Mara Salvatrucha - aka MS-13 - the World's Most Violent Street Gang

Hijos de la Guerra ("Children of the War") is a feature-length documentary film about the world's largest and most violent street gang: the Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has declared the MS-13 the fastest growing and most violent street gang in the United States. Through a series of over 80 interviews (including gang members across several countries, the gang's founders, experts and academics) and powerful footage inside jails in El Salvador, gang-infested neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and Salvadoran communities across the East Coast of the United States, the film sheds light on the root personal reasons for gang membership, the ensuing explosion of fratricidal violence as well as the complex role of social and government policy in both containing and aggravating gang proliferation.