Year: 2021
Director: David Whitney
Writer: David Whitney
Executive Producers: Alan Clements and Mick McAvoy for Two Rivers Media, and Nick Taussig for Salon Pictures.
Distributor: Killing Escobar is distributed internationally by Abacus Media Rights and to cinemas across the UK by Cosmic Cat Films.
Commissioner: BBC Scotland
Synopsis
In 1989, Scottish mercenary and ex-SAS operative, Peter McAleese, was hired by a Colombian drug carter to lead a small team of ex-special forces commandos on a mission to assassinate the world’s biggest drug baron, Pablo Escobar. With heart stopping dramatic reconstruction, access to never-before-seen footage of the mission and first person accounts from both the mercenaries and the cartel, Killing Escobar is a documentary thriller that reveals how one man’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, training in the SAS and experience as a mercenary in Africa led him to the jungles of Colombia and the heart of the Medellin cocaine empire.
At 78 years old and returning to the Catholic faith of his youth, McAleese reflects on one of the most ambitious and perilous assignments of his career; the one that pushed him closer to death than any other, a mission to kill the most feared man in the world, Pablo Escobar.
More information
Killing Escobar had its premiere at Glasgow Film Festival 2021. This is the first theatrical documentary release from Glasgow-based independent production company Two Rivers Media.
Killing Escobar will also screen at CPH: Dox 2021 in April 2021.