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Letter from Mexico
Booming trade under the skull and crossbones
Kurt Hollander
Guardian Weekly
In the last century the neighbourhood of Tepito in Mexico City went from being the centre of second-hand goods to being the hub of fayuca - illegally imported or stolen electrical appliances. When Nafta got rid of tariffs on electrical appliances, Tepito evolved into the home of Mexican piratería .
Piratería, the illegal reproduction and sale of DVDs, videos, music, computer programs and video games, along with knock-offs of brand-name clothes, represents the most lucrative industry in Mexico. Sales of these illegal goods represent three times that of Pemex, the government-owned oil company.
On the global scale, Mexico is exceeded only by China and Russia in pirate profits. Some 40% of all sales in Mexico are from pirated goods, and it is estimated that up to 70% of CDs and DVDs are illegally reproduced. And the vast majority of pirated goods are made in and around Tepito. Which is to say, business here is booming.
The streets are completely overrun by stalls set up underneath coloured tarpaulins that extend for dozens of blocks in all directions, creating a cramped outdoor "mall" in one of the city's only pedestrian neighbourhoods. This new industry of workers exists outside the law, and lacks all worker benefits and protection. Which is perhaps why so many people have been flocking to the new saint in town, la santa muerte (holy death), who is called upon to help people out of difficulties, especially those involving money, violence and the law.
When I ask one of the vendors wearing a black santa muerte T-shirt if he really believes in her power, he lifts up his shirt and shows me several stab wounds on his back. "If it weren't for her protection, I would have bled to death like a stuck pig. Of course I believe in her." In Tepito pirates still operate under the emblem of a skull and crossbones. Curiously, the police also pay their respects to this skeletal figure, whose altars are to be seen on several corners in Tepito.
The police, however, rarely enter the neighbourhood. Tepiteños handle their own security. This I get to see first-hand. One guy, obviously on drugs, tries to steal some clothes off a stand: he is quickly stomped on by several members of the local business community, right in front of the shopping crowd. One old lady turns to me: "Whatever happened to the saying that anyone who steals from a thief is granted a hundred years of forgiveness?" I imagine that only applies if you get away with it.
In Tepito one can buy DVDs of all the Hollywood films, months before they appear in licensed form. Usually the pirated copies are shot with a digital video camera during a preview screening. As such, the movie is often complemented by images of people getting up out of their seats or accompanied by the sounds of popcorn crunching or someone coughing. The millions of dollars spent on special effects inevitably become lost in translation.
It is not just Hollywood blockbuster films that are illegally reproduced here, however. Much to my surprise, I find a copy of my own feature film, Carambola , on sale. My film, like all the countless Hollywood and Mexican films sold in Tepito, costs six pesos (50 cents), as opposed to DVDs sold in shops, which sell for more than $17. The cost of the film is not what surprises me, though. My surprise is the fact that, unlike the other films on sale here, my film isn't even finished yet.
I ask the guy in the stand to pop my film into his DVD player so I can watch it on the television he has set up in the stall. What is being sold as Carambola , I see, is actually a crude version that must have been illegally purchased from someone at one of the laboratories the film has passed through in its post-production stage. On the cover of the DVD all the credits that appear are invented, but for the main actors' and my own, while 20th Century Fox is credited as the distributor.
When I tell the vendor that I'm the director and that the film isn't even finished, he's impressed, though not with me. "People are watching your film before it even comes out? Now that's the magic of Tepito!"
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