About Justice for My Sister

A feature length documentary, Justice for my Sister examines the issue of femicide - essentially hate crimes against women - by taking an intimate look at one family's loss. Adela Chacón Tax left home for work one day at the age of 27 and never returned because she was beaten to death by an ex-boyfriend. Her story is hauntingly familiar in Guatemala, where 4000 women were killed in a span of seven years. Her sister Rebeca, 33, is determined to see Adela’s case through until the killer Ricardo is held accountable.

The film documents Rebeca’s two-year-long journey in the Guatemalan court system: it leads her to lost police reports, empty prosecutor’s offices, distant NGO’s, town rumors, the killer’s accusations, corrupt judges, and a postponed trial. Rebeca herself is transformed by her battle and emerges as a feminist leader in her rural community. Rebeca's story, supplemented by activist interviews, newspaper articles, news clips, interviews with community members, and footage of public action denouncing femicide, explores the far-reaching normalization of the violence, the media's take on it, and the limitations and possibilities of the justice system in Guatemala.