FilmRise today releases the critically-acclaimed true crime documentary, SOUTHWEST OF SALEM: The Story of the San Antonio Four," on Digital on Demand, DVD and Blu-ray. The DVD/Blu-ray will include exclusive footage and a post-exoneration featurette with the "San Antonio Four."
Directed by Deborah S. Esquenazi, the film had its world premiere at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and later its television debut on Investigation Discovery. "Southwest of Salem" excavates the nightmarish persecution of Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh, and Anna Vasquez-four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of allegedly gang raping two young girls. After nearly 15 years of wrongful imprisonment, the women were officially exonerated in November 2016.
Their bizarre case was the first to be adjudicated under momentous new legislation-for the first time in U.S. history, wrongfully convicted innocents could challenge convictions based on debunked scientific evidence. "Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four" unravels the sinister interplay of mythology, homophobia, and prosecutorial fervor that led to this modern-day witch hunt.
"Southwest of Salem" was released theatrically in the fall of 2016. After Ramirez, Rivera, Mayhugh, and Vasquez were exonerated, the film returned for a second theatrical run at New York's Metrograph theater. In 2016, the film was honored with a Critics Choice Documentary Award and won top prizes at Outfest and Frameline International LGBTQ Film Festival.
"Six years ago when we began re-investigating the 'San Antonio Four' case, we never imagined we'd find ourselves at the center of their story, influencing thier freedom from prison and eventual exoneration-and for wider freedoms for the wrongly accused," said the film's director Deborah S. Esquenazi. "The 'San Antonio Four' were exonerated the day before Thanksgiving, and the filmmaking team, along with attorneys at The Innocence Project of Texas, helped create a movement for criminal justice and gay rights."
The film was directed and produced by Esquenazi, and produced by Sam Tabet. The film was Executive Produced by Jim Butterworth and Daniel J. Chalfen at Naked Edge Films; and Julie Goldman and Christopher Clements at Motto Pictures.
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