Muck Media launches the film project “El Fixer” about fixers who lead foreign journalists to the “darkest corners” of the Mexican drug trade

EXCLUSIVE: Muck Media announced today that it will publish the best-selling Mexican memoir The restorer for the big screen, the company’s first foray into scripted narrative content.

Journalist Miguel Ángel Vega’s book describes “his journey from aspiring filmmaker to guiding foreign journalists working for some of the world’s most famous media brands into the darkest corners of the drug wars of the past decade”. It’s an inherently risky business because outsiders in need of a fixer “go where the action is” without necessarily understanding the mortal danger they face.

A description of the book reads: “Many North American, German, English and French journalists are interested in covering the ups and downs of organized crime in Mexico, but the first problem is how to contact drug lords. huachicoleros, kidnapper, with an organized crime leader. There is no easy way to do this, so in Mexico and around the world there is a select group of people who are at the forefront of criminal networks without being criminals themselves: they are journalists, photographers, reporters, the known as fixers. “

Mariana van Zeller, partner at Muck Media and host of the Emmy-nominated National Geographic series Trade with Mariana van Zeller, will serve as executive producer on the film, alongside Ángel Vega and Muck Media partner and Emmy-winning director Darren Foster, and Emmy-nominated writer-producer Rodrigo X. González.

“Fixers are the unsung heroes of the newsgathering and documentary world. “Most reporters know that without the local producers to hire them, they would be lost or even dead working overseas,” Van Zeller said in a statement. Part thriller, part dark comedy, Miguel’s beautiful memoir pulls back the curtain to reveal in poignant and sometimes hilarious detail what it takes to set the story in one of the world’s most dangerous rhythms.

Foster said: “Each anecdote in Miguel’s heart-wrenching memoir could be a movie on its own. As our business expands into written content, it’s the bold and original stories we aim to tell. It’s about journalism, the media and our fascination with crime. All in a way we’ve never seen before – through the eyes of ‘The restorer.‘”

Previous works by Muck Media have appeared in the non-fiction section. Credits include critically acclaimed documentaries American pain (CNN Movies/HBOmax), Mucho Mucho Amor (Netflix) and the award-winning documentary science exhibition (Disney+). Muck Media premiered the series earlier this year Menudo: Forever young (HBO Max) and Trade with Mariana van Zeller has been picked up by NatGeo for a fourth season. The animated short documentary by Muck Media The originaldirected by Cristina Costantini (partner of Muck Media) and Alfie Kötter, stands a chance to win an Oscar this year.

That The restorer Project is represented by BLA. No production start date or intended release date has been announced.