Is Netflix drama Somos. based on a true story?
Netflix drama series Somos. follows the lives of an ensemble group of fictional characters, all inspired by real-life testimonies. Advertisement  The six-part series is set during the months leading up to the 2011 massacre that took place in Allende, a ranch town in Mexico, close to the US border and the state of Texas. Somos.s characters show another side of a story weve seen so often on screen. Instead of the narco or the cop with the gun, we turn the camera around on the extra in the corner, says series creator and executive producer James Schamus. The people who hover around the borders of the screen  those are the people at the centre of Somos In our series, you get to know whats important to a young teenager, a mother, a firefighter, a rancher. Somos. is the untold story of Allende, Coahuila, a Mexican town close to the Texas border. In March 2011, the town suffered a massacre by one of Mexicos most dangerous cartels, in response to an infiltration by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). The series draws inspiration from the ProPublica investigation, which includes numerous written and oral testimonies from witnesses, Allende residents, and members of the local authorities, the DEA, and the Zetas cartel. The investigation revealed that the massacre was triggered by a DEA operation gone wrong: agents managed to secure trackable cellphone identification numbers for two of the cartels most wanted kingpins, Miguel ngel Trevio and his brother Omar. However, the agencys possession of these numbers was shared with Mexican police, and the information was later leaked. When the Trevios discovered they had been betrayed, the cartel took revenge. Houses were looted and burnt. Men, women, and children were among those kidnapped and killed, their bodies burnt. Over a single day, emergency authorities received 250 phone calls, but interviewees cited in the article claim that no one ever arrived to help. Netflix  A single family, the Garzas, lost almost 20 members due to their links to the cartel, including an 81-year-old woman and a seven-month-old baby, both believed to be among the dead. Writing in a Netflix blog post, series creator and executive producer James Schamus explained why the on-screen characters in Somos., while inspired by real-life testimonies, are fictional. Although Somos. is grounded in true stories, it is essentially a fiction. We didnt want the people in Allende to worry that we might be misremembering or misrepresenting real people. So we took elements from many stories, and then created new characters to enact and expand upon them. In this way, everyone in Allende will still see themselves and their neighbors in the series. But through these fictions we hope to add to their  and to our  shared reality, and in this way help that reality becomes a bigger part of the conversation, he wrote. He continued, It is not coincidental that the majority of key creative leaders on the series are women, for it is mainly women who spoke most fearlessly in [ProPublica journalist] Ginger Thompsons oral history, and women who continue to lead the effort to memorialize and account for the events on which Somos. is based.  The ProPublica investigation also revealed that the exact death toll is still unknown, with estimates ranging from 300 people killed to 28 (the official number). No one connected to the massacre has been charged with murder. Advertisement  Somos. is released on Wednesday 30th June 2021 on Netflix. Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, visit our TV Guide, or take a look at the rest of our Drama coverage.