discussion guide · the film: the nightcrawlers ... for raffy lerma, a former staff photographer at...

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2 | D I S C U S S I O N G U I D E T H E N I G H TC R AW L E R S natgeo.com/nightcrawlers

T H E F I L M : T H E N I G H TC R AW L E R S

T H E M A K I N G O F T H E N I G H TC R AW L E R S

D I S C U S S I O N Q U E ST I O N S

A B O U T T H E F I L M M A K E R S

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S


SY N O P S I S

In 2016, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte ran for president of the Philippines on a promise to eradicate the scourge of drugs from

the country. After his landslide victory, he launched a brutal anti-drug campaign that sparked a wave of bloodshed

across the bustling streets of metropolitan Manila. Within six months, more than 2,000 people were killed in police

operations, and thousands more were murdered by unidentified gunmen.

Those statistics skyrocketed over the next year, with credible media reports putting the death toll at upward of 12,000;

today, human rights organizations say the body count could be as high as 27,000. Although police officially deny any

connection to the vigilante-style murders engulfing the nation, Duterte’s public pledge to slaughter drug addicts makes

the government’s claim of innocence difficult for many to believe. Perhaps even more shocking is that the majority of

the country supports Duterte and his so-called war on drugs.

For Raffy Lerma, a former staff photographer at a prominent Filipino newspaper, the killings have turned his beloved

Manila into an ever-expanding crime scene. Although years of photographing graphic murders and grieving family

members threatens to render him emotionally numb, Lerma maintains his passionate commitment to chronicling the

city’s immense suffering.

Joining him in documenting the humanitarian crisis is an earnest group of freelance photojournalists, or “nightcrawlers.”

Armed only with cameras and a profound sense of civic responsibility, these tireless photographers speed through

the streets, night after night, capturing images of horror and heartbreak in an effort to expose the magnitude of the

problem — even though Duterte has explicitly threatened to target journalists critical of his drug war.

Meanwhile, on one of the thousands of tiny islands that compose the Philippines, a freelance death squad prepares

for a mission of another kind. Envisioning themselves as holy warriors tasked with eliminating evil, this 87-member

group claims to be part of a larger organization that is more than 6,000 strong. Here, on this remote island, they train

their newest recruits on how to murder with detached efficiency. So secret is this group that not even their own family

members know who they are; in many ways, the members’ very ordinariness is the key to the group’s lethal success. As

night falls, a three-man team climbs into a waiting boat and heads toward Manila to execute an unsuspecting victim

they’ve been paid to kill.

Directed and shot with pulse-pounding intensity by first-time filmmaker Alexander A. Mora, The Nightcrawlers covers

two sides of the bloody conflict — and, through unprecedented access, reveals the true cost of Duterte’s brutal crusade.

T H E F I L M T H E N I G H TC R AW L E R S


T H E M A K I N G O F T H E N I G H TC R AW L E R S

Director Alexander A. Mora didn’t set out to make a documentary about the community of freelance photographers

documenting Manila’s drug war. His original intention was to shoot a short film focused on one tragic story from the

violent conflict. “It was supposed to be a 10- or 15-minute piece about a young girl who grew up in the drug war and

became a victim of the personal vendettas that are a very unfortunate part of it,” Mora says. “But it took on a life of its

own as my colleague, Doireann Maddock, and I met people and gained access that we didn’t think we would ever have.”

Mora, who was enrolled in law school and working for a startup at the time, knew he wanted to document the crisis

unfolding in the Philippines, but he had few contacts in the region to help guide him. “We kind of went out there

blind. Doireann reached out to Raffy Lerma, one of the nightcrawlers whom we follow throughout the documentary,

because he’d made the local news,” says Mora. “In a fundamental way, [Lerma] was the face of the growing anti-drug-

war movement at that time.”

B E C OM I N G A N I G H TC R AW L E R

Raffy Lerma was a staff photographer at the Philippine Daily Inquirer when the drug war exploded in Manila following

Duterte’s presidential election victory. “I was fairly experienced with working the night shift because I’d done it back in

2007,” he explains. “So, when this drug war beat came along, I told my boss I wanted the job because I knew what was

going to happen. In his campaign, the president had literally promised that thousands would be killed.”

Although he’d covered countless crime scenes in the past, nothing could have prepared Lerma for the scope and

savagery of the violence he would encounter. “In 2016, I photographed more drug-related killings, extrajudicial killings

and killings in general in one month than I did during the whole year of 2007,” he says. “That’s how grave the situation

was. Don’t get me wrong: Killings happened before. There might be one or two a night. But when this started, you’d

have five, 10, 15, even 32 in one night.”

With public support for the drug war continuing unabated and no end to the conflict in sight, the local news coverage

of the situation began to decline drastically. Lerma chose to continue covering the drug war as a freelance journalist.


“C OM P L E T E C A R N AG E ”

Lerma says he received a request about participating in the documentary from Maddock via Instagram and agreed to

help her. “Journalists are competitive by nature,” says Lerma. “But with those of us covering the drug war, it isn’t about

competition. We want this story out there, and we will provide information to everyone who asks for it.”

During a stopover in Manila on their way to the provinces, Mora and Maddock met with Lerma in person to discuss the

project. “He was very open and welcoming, and I think he seemed happy to have found some Western interest in the

subject,” says Mora. “That initial meeting was one of the key turning points in our journey on this documentary.”

Lerma recommended that the filmmakers focus their attention on metropolitan Manila because it was the epicenter

of the drug war at the time. “And so, on a Friday evening, he invited us to come out with him on the night shift,” Mora

recalls.

What Mora and Maddock saw shocked them. “It was complete carnage. I think around 20 people were killed that night,”

says Mora. “We were very struck by what we experienced, as you can imagine. That’s when it became obvious that this

was where the story was.”

Lerma encouraged them to spend more time with him in order to gain a deeper understanding of the situation. “He

pushed us to dig a little deeper, and over time we developed a relationship with him, and things grew organically from

there,” Mora explains. “The first few nights we went out with him, it was just me and Doireann. At the time, we were still

only casual observers shooting on an iPhone. But as we met and became friends with the other nightcrawlers, it became

quite clear that they were doing something very courageous in the middle of an incredibly scary war.”

S H O OT I N G I N T H E DA R K

Being a first-time filmmaker, Mora was forced to learn the technical aspects of camerawork as he went along. “In order to

obtain the footage we needed, it became very clear that there were significant limitations to using an iPhone,” he says.

“For example, there’s not much light to work with when you’re shooting in back alleys in the middle of the night. So, after

much research, we eventually made the decision to switch to the Sony Alpha a7S Mark II camera.”

Mora credits Lerma with suggesting the a7S because of its ability to shoot in extreme low light. “Luckily, with so many

professional photographers around, it wasn’t that difficult to find people who understood the mechanics of what we

needed in order to get high-quality images,” Mora says.

Mora and Maddock returned to Manila in December 2016 equipped with their new camera and shot for a full month.

“Suddenly, it became a more formal endeavor,” the director recalls. “In terms of vérité filmmaking, I was learning on the

go. Because this was a very long and expensive trip, there was a lot of pressure involved.”


There was a lot of death and danger involved too. “Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that it was better if I did the

filming by myself,” says Mora. “It was a safety consideration. The danger I faced oftentimes came by association, because

there wasn’t much difference between me and the nightcrawlers. We turned up at crime scenes with cameras in hand.”

Ironically, when Mora first began working on the documentary, the Philippine government was fairly open to the idea

of Western journalists covering the killings. “They imagined that the media coverage would be favorable,” he explains.

“But after the publication of Daniel Berehulak’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photography in The New York Times, which was

a scathing exposé of the killings, the government scaled back media access in general. At that point, we didn’t know in

what direction things were going to go.”

D I S C U S S I O N Q U E ST I O N S

If you are a journalist, studying to become one, or interested in the field, what drives you to become a journalist

or photojournalist? What made you first become interested in journalism?

Are there any particular scenes from the film that affected or stood out to you?

Had you heard of “nightcrawling” as a journalism tactic before?

What did you like or dislike about the way the journalists pursued their stories? Do you agree with the practices

of being a “nightcrawler”?

The photojournalist mentioned he had a sense of responsibility to expose what’s going on in the Philippines.

Have you ever felt that way? Why?

Why do you think the filmmakers decided to follow “The Group”?

Why do you think “The Group” allowed the filmmaking team access to them?

In the film we see journalists gather together to demand accountability from President Duterte and his

administration to defend press freedom. Can you think of relevant examples in your community?

Are you aware of the precautions journalists take as a “nightcrawler”? If not, are you familiar with organizations

such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists?

What questions would you ask the photojournalists featured in the film?

If you could use photojournalism to raise awareness about any issue, which would you choose and why?

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A B O U T T H E F I L M M A K E R S

ALEXANDER A. MORA (director) is a first-time filmmaker with a background in architecture, policy and law. Keenly

interested in international rights-based advocacy, he was an active member on the board of Yale Law School’s Human

Rights and Development Journal before directing “The Nightcrawlers.” His persistent desire to find greater synergy

between his passion for creative storytelling and his dedication to advocacy led to his first foray into narrative

documentary filmmaking.

Mora holds a bachelor’s degree from Oxford University and a master’s degree in architecture from Yale University; his

final thesis explored the synthesis of filmmaking and architecture through parametric and 3D animation. After receiving

his architectural training, Mora worked at the United Nations and in a broad range of public- and private-sector roles,

merging the creative disciplines, policy and legislation. He currently lives in London.

JOANNA NATASEGARA (producer) is an Academy Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated British film producer and

the founder of Violet Films. She is best known for the Oscar-winning Netflix Original short documentary “The White

Helmets” (2016) and the multi-award-winning feature documentary “Virunga” (2014). More recent documentary

projects include the British Independent Film Award-winning “Evelyn” (2018) for BBC Films and the BFI and acclaimed

Netflix Original “The Edge of Democracy” (2019). Natasegara also boasts an established track record of running

award-winning global campaigns — including on “Virunga,” “No Fire Zone” and “Human Flow” — to maximize a film’s

potential for social change. She serves on several boards and consults on strategic communications and impact for

internationally esteemed institutions, companies and individuals. Natasegara holds a Master of Science degree in

human rights from the London School of Economics.

DOIREANN MADDOCK (producer) is a first-time filmmaker with a background in nursing and communications. Before

producing “The Nightcrawlers,” she worked as a medical editor and feature writer for a leading U.K. charity, focusing on

stories that highlight the strength of the human spirit in the face of immense adversity. With a long-standing desire to

bring stories to life, and after training in screenwriting, Maddock embarked on a journey to the Philippines that would

ultimately result in “The Nightcrawlers.”

ABIGAIL ANKETELL-JONES (producer) is a U.K.-based producer at the award-winning production company Violet Films,

best known for the Oscar-winning Netflix Original documentary “The White Helmets” and the Oscar-nominated “Virunga.”

Most recently she co-produced Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara’s powerful, BIFA-winning “Evelyn” and

Petra Costa’s acclaimed Sundance feature documentary “The Edge of Democracy,” which premiered on Netflix in 2019.

Anketell-Jones is a Doc Society Impact Fellow and has worked on hard-hitting social-change campaigns for several

films, including “No Fire Zone,” “Virunga,” “The Borneo Case” and “Human Flow.” She also has worked as part of the

communications team for Virunga National Park.


C R E D I T S

Directed and Filmed By Alexander A. Mora

Producers Joanna Natasegara, Doireann Maddock, Abigail Anketell-Jones

Executive Producers Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Lisa Marie Russo, Sandra Whipham

Executive Producers Carolyn Bernstein, Ryan Harrington

Editor Michael Nollet

Co-Editor Andrew Cross

Music by Thomas E. Brown

R E S O U RC E S

For more information visit https://www.natgeotv.com/za/shows/natgeo/the-nightcrawlers

Reporters without Borders https://rsf.org/en

Committee to Protect Journalists https://cpj.org/

http://www.natgeotv.com/za/shows/natgeo/the-nightcrawlers

http://rsf.org/en

http://cpj.org/

discussion guide · the film: the nightcrawlers ... for raffy lerma, a former staff photographer at...

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