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Vanessa Juercke | Germany | 2018 | 21:01

In September 2014 a group of students of the Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa took over buses in the city Iguala to perform protest activities, a practice which was quite common among students of this school. The school educates teachers for the marginalized regions of Mexico and has a tradition of political activism. The illegally occupied buses were stopped by the police and members of the organized crime. Six people died in the fire attack, 40 got injured. The police arrested 43 students who have been disappeared ever since. The attacks and the arrest of the young men were observed and supervised by the Mexican military. Three years later it is still unclear what happened to the 43 students. Are they dead or alive? Where are they or where are their bodies? According to the official explanation by the Mexican government, all the students have been killed by members of a criminal group. This version has been proven to be wrong. Further investigations have not been followed up.

The documentary follows the parents on the 3rd anniversary of the disappearance to the annual demonstration in Mexico City, where thousands of people support the movement and demand justice for the 43 students and more than 33.000 disappeared in Mexico since 2007.
Many of the parents of the 43 disappeared students call the Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa and its political activism now their home and daily life. In the film, two survivors of the 26th September 2014 describe the attack of the police that night and their unbowed will for political action. Two mothers tell their stories about the last moments with their sons and their belief that they are alive.

“La lucha sigue. El caso Ayotzinapa” (“The fight continues. The Ayotzinapa Case”) gives a personal approach to the people affected by the disappearance of the 43 students, that became symbolic for 33.000 disappeared people in Mexico.