Mexican stars Garcia Bernal, Luna launch documentary company

Last Updated: Sunday, August 12, 2007 | 12:06 PM ET

CBC Arts

Mexican movie stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, who starred together in Y Tu Mama Tambien, have launched their own production company focusing on documentaries.

The two hosted a gala dinner on Saturday night in Mexico City to formally introduce their new venture, which will focus on social justice issues.

"Documentaries show us the injustices in the country where we live, that this problem exists," Garcia Bernal told a news conference before the dinner. "We can't escape it."

'Each day it's harder to live in this country ... and turn a blind eye to the poverty and injustice.'—Diego Luna

The $300 US-a-plate meal was also a benefit for two causes: Mexico's Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights and Witness, an organization founded by singer Peter Gabriel that promotes the use of video and film to document human rights abuses.

The pair's Canana production company will fund documentaries examining the failures of the Mexican judicial system, including the unsolved murders of more than 300 women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.

"Each day it's harder to live in this country and in this city and turn a blind eye to the poverty and injustice," said Luna, who recently directed his first documentary, Chavez, about the legendary Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez.

Both actors have publicly supported Mexico City's new law making gay civil unions legal and Garcia Bernal has been an outspoken critic of a proposed border fence between Mexico and the United States, calling the idea "absurd."

The two have been busy since appearing in the Oscar-nominated Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), a highly-acclaimed coming-of-age road movie directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

Garcia Bernal, 28, has appeared as a young Che Guevara in 2004's The Motorcycle Diaries, as well as The Science of Sleep and 2006's Babel. The 27-year-old Luna has had roles in Frida (2002) and 2004's Criminal.