In an interview hosted by Expediente Político, producer Estefanía Bonilla Hernández and director/writer Craig Whitney discussed the documentary podcast La Nota Roja (titled The Red Note in English), a bilingual series about femicides in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. The conversation covered the project’s origins, reporting approach, interview process, and the production’s stated goals for structure and scope.
Bonilla Hernández explained that the project began as a feature-film screenplay that Whitney had been developing for years, while the team sought financing. She said the Los Angeles production company Imperative Entertainment read the screenplay and proposed adapting the material into a podcast series. According to Bonilla Hernández, the research accumulated for the screenplay made it possible to expand the work into an audio format: a ten-episode series, approximately 40 minutes per episode, built from long-form reporting and interviews. She also described how the team approached journalist Lydia Cacho to direct and narrate the series, saying that Cacho quickly agreed to participate after learning how the project intended to address the subject.
Asked what the podcast portrays, Bonilla Hernández emphasized that the series was designed around families’ stories while also providing historical and social context. She described the intention as combining testimony with analysis so that listeners could understand both what happened to specific victims and the conditions that allow violence to persist. In the interview, she described the production method as aiming for “historical, sociological, [and] anthropological” contextualization alongside family testimony, and said that local journalist Alicia Fernández, described as having extensive experience reporting in Juárez, helped identify interviewees and advise the team on how best to conduct interviews and represent the subject.
Bonilla Hernández also addressed how the team approached interviews without treating violence as routine. She described the work as grounded in empathy and in recognizing the different emotional realities of families depending on the timing and circumstances of a case. She compared interviews with long-time activists, who may have years of experience navigating authorities and impunity, to interviews in cases that were still very recent, where grief and shock were closer to the surface. She said this shaped how the team listened and how they structured episodes.
Whitney described the project as intentionally multi-perspective rather than centered on a single case. He said it would be impossible to understand the Juárez femicides through only one lens, and that the podcast combines voices from families with investigators, journalists, academics, and government perspectives. He also described the underlying premise as systemic. As Whitney put it, “It’s a story of 27 years… with thousands and thousands of victims… with a combination of forces: globalization… drug trafficking, corruption, machismo, and all the forces in combination are really the perpetrators of these crimes.”
The interview also addressed organized crime, trafficking, and impunity. Bonilla Hernández discussed how sources described trafficking networks as economically driven and how institutional constraints: resources, corruption, and organized crime influence affect investigations. She also referenced legal changes and specialized offices that followed the 2009 Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling in the “Campo Algodonero” case, while noting delays and practical limits in implementation.
When asked what the podcast contributes, Bonilla Hernández characterized it as a chronicle intended to trace developments over time, including the early formal recording of femicides and disappearances in Juárez beginning in the early 1990s, and the social and economic changes that coincided with that period along the border. She said the series aims to organize testimony and research into a narrative that helps audiences understand how one development led to another.
Whitney also described his personal path into the subject, including growing up in Texas and encountering early cultural references to the Juárez cases before years of research and development. He stated that direct contact with families changed the nature of the responsibility involved. As he said, “It’s impossible to visit places and hear the stories of the mothers and fathers of the victims and not feel a responsibility to tell their stories with the world.”