Christian Poveda filmet bandene i El Salvador, spesielt den som går under navnet Mara18. Det kostet ham livet.

Police say that Poveda was driving back from filming in La Campanera, an overcrowded ghetto that is a stronghold of the Mara 18 gang, when he was apparently ambushed.

Gangsters are suspected to be behind the killing, which has provoked anger and revulsion. Mauricio Funes, the former Marxist guerrilla who became President of El Salvador in June, spoke of his shock in a statement last night and ordered a full investigation.

Poveda rakk å fullføre en film om Mara 18, kalt La Vida Loca, Det sinnsyke livet. Den vil garantert oppnå status etter hans død.

Several of the gangsters were killed or jailed during filming and the documentary records disturbing scenes of gang members gunned down in the streets, relatives crying over coffins and young female gangsters with tattooed faces.

The film is critical of the heavy police crackdown on gang members, which Poveda felt failed to take account of the hopeless poverty and personal tragedy that drive young Salvadorans to turn to crime.

«We have to understand why a 12- or 13-year-old child joins a gang and gives his life to it,» Poveda said in a recent interview with El Faro, a Salvadoran online newspaper.

«Children who have terrible family problems, or come from poor families who don’t have time to take care of their children.»

Controversial French filmmaker Christian Poveda shot dead in El Salvador