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ABDUL MARIN-NUNEZ & BELIZE GANG CRISIS!

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The documentary short draws an urgent attention to Belize's gang crisis that has violently traumatized the city of Belize City in Belize, and exposed the black on black crime that has marginalized Belize's black men. It also focused on intervention programs by Belizean activists like Abdul Marin Nunez and his work inside Belize City's most dangerous gang enclaves, as well as the first gang intervention work in the southern districts of Belize where the gang problem has also spread.

Bilal Morris

Director
Bilal Morris

Writer
Bilal Morris

Producer
Abdul Marin Nunez, Leonides Sanchez and Erwin Muhammad

Key Cast

Project Type:

Short
Runtime:

27 minutes 23 seconds
Completion Date:

May 2, 2017
Country of Origin:

Belize
Country of Filming:

Belize
Language:

English
Shooting Format:

Digital
Aspect Ratio:

16:9
Film Color:

Color
First-time Filmmaker:

No
Student Project:

No

Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival (GIIFF)

Venice
United States
May 27, 2017
North America Premiere
Visionary Award

Director Biography - Bilal Morris

Bilal Morris is a journalist that has written on a wide aspect of events that include politics, culture, history, world music and Islam. He is a Muslim from Belize in Central America, and has covered a lot of issues relating to Muslims in Central America and the Caribbean. He is an educator with the Los Angeles Unified School District and a documentary filmmaker.

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Director Statement

The art of a person begins when someone in the community feels the urge to create!

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"THE BELIZE GANG CRISIS!"

(A documentary film by yours truly Bilal Morris on the violent gang crisis exploding in Belize today that was screened at the 2017 Garifuna International & Indigenous Film Festival in Venice, California) by Bilal Morris Since the so-called “War on Drugs” in Central America, and the arrival of American television in Belize in the 1980’s in Belize, the gang crisis in Belize’s major commercial city, Belize City, has grown significantly into a violent crisis. The exportation of the gang culture from South Central Los Angeles has also become another factor that has introduced Belizean black males (both Creoles and Garifuna) to the so-called Crips and Bloods, and today as this map shows, has spread like a wildfire across Belize City, mostly into the culturally and economically deprived neighborhoods that has now become slums. Today Belize City’s gang problem has already taken hundreds of young black lives, and also has begun to be exported into the Southern cities of Belize’s “culture capital”, Dangriga, and into the last safe haven of the far removed Southern city of Punta Gorda. Abdul Marin Nunez is a Belizean Garifuna Social Worker and activist who work in Belize City doing social work inside the city’s most violent neighborhoods. Inside these impoverished enclaves, Belize City gangs have carved out turfs that are in close proximity to each other, and the violent urban warfare can erupt suddenly without any warning. He works with many of these gang members administering counseling and what he called, “Afrocentric Social Work”, since most of these young men are black men of Creole and Garifuna heritage. He also implements gang intervention programs in conjunction with many other social groups who are also doing intervention work. Once a policeman and a school teacher, Nunez has a deep understanding in terms of what are the root causes of gangs, and he has worked with the police and civil society in Belize in trying to arrest the problem, and bring some kind of peace to the communities that are traumatized by the violence. This documentary shows the work of Nunez as he joins a team of other gang intervention workers that are trying to curb the spread of Belize City’s gang culture into the southern cities of Dangriga in the Stann District of Belize, and Punta Gorda in the Toledo District of the country.

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