
"...a compelling hour..."
"...thoughtful yet entertaining and above-all informative..." Austin American-Statesman
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Just before dawn on March 9, 1916, a band of Mexican revolutionaries loyal to General Francisco "Pancho" Villa crossed the border into the United States and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Within a matter of hours, seventeen Americans and 67 Mexicans lay dead. The next day, President Woodrow Wilson announced the formation of the Punitive Expedition under the command of General John "Blackjack" Pershing. Within three months over 150,000 U.S. National guardsmen and Army regulars would be mobilized, in what was the largest troop deployment in the United States since the Civil War. "The Hunt for Pancho Villa" recounts the events that brought the U.S. and Mexico to the brink of war in the early part of this century. The film draws on a wealth of visual archival materials, such as photographs, postcards, cartoons, newsreel and film excerpts found in public and private collections in the United States and Mexico. Eleven months after they entered Mexico, the Punitive Expedition returned without ever having caught sight of Pancho Villa.
Key Production Staff
| Producers
Director Writer Narrator |
Paul Espinosa
Hector Galan Hector Galan Paul Espinosa Linda Hunt |
Press Releases and Reviews
- Press Release En Español
- The Dallas Morning News
- The San Diego Union-Tribune
- Un Articulo en Español
- The San Diego Reader
- El Sol de San Diego
- El Sol de San Diego
- KPBS On Air
- La Prensa San Diego
Funding
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting Production Grant
- American Experience Production Grant
- New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities
- Arizona Humanities Council
- Texas Committee for the Humanities
Awards and Honors
- Best Written Documentary, Spur Award, Western Writers of America, 1993
- Imagen Award, Best Documentary, National Conference of Christians and Jews, 1994
National PBS Broadcast: November 3, 1993