Drug trafficking, poverty, gang violence, corruption and ethnic warfare have created some of the most dangerous hot spots on Earth. WITNESS follows our current generation of photojournalists into these conflict zones in Mexico, Libya, Brazil and South Sudan. In the four-part series, war photographers carry us into the heart of the human drama of the people in the action on the ground. We see what compels the photojournalist and experience why, when everyone else seeks cover, the photojournalist stands and moves closer.

Executive produced by writer-director Michael Mann (The Insider, Ali, Heat, HBOs Luck) and acclaimed commercial and documentary director David Frankham, WITNESS is not a historical summary or analysis. It does not present the sides of an issue from an objective perspective. WITNESS is the exact opposite. It is personal experience. It is an immersion into the human drama on the ground of people caught in the thick of it. WITNESS dives into the anomalies, the humor, the tragedy, the chaos, the exultation. It struggles to capture  as does the photographer  a small piece of the truth in a moment.

I share an admiration for the art and the truth-telling of photography from conflict zones with David Frankham, says Mann. Sometimes, in a single frame in the midst of chaos and danger, an indescribable, small piece of truth is captured. As journalists, as artists, theyre drawn in while everyone else is running in the other direction. They stand as witness.

Says Frankham, WITNESS was born out of our belief that by following the experiences and struggles of war photographers who risk their lives in an attempt to reveal the truth, we would capture an honest, ground-level view of conflicts around the world, and the people affected, in a way that had not been seen before.

WITNESS: JUAREZ

Pro journalist Eros Hoagland has worked in conflict zones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti, but his focus, here, is Juarez, Mexico, the murder capital of the world. Drug violence in Juarez has left over 10,000 dead, and the drugs are still flowing north. Eros began work as a photojournalist in 1993, covering the aftermath of El Salvadors civil war. He has since worked in Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan and Columbia. His father, Newsweek photographer John Hoagland, was killed in El Salvador when Eros was a boy. Eros looks for an emotional narrative within the subjects. In a grim locale a man is shot in his car and dies. It is Hoaglands capture of the incongruity of the quietness of death and the waiting of the police that conveys the absurdity of accident and the deepest of feelings. Eros search is always for the emotional narrative. Directed by David Frankham; produced by Ike Martin, Alison Kunzman and Youree Henley.

WITNESS is a Blue Light Media/Little Puppet Production. Executive producers are Michael Mann and David Frankham. It features photojournalists Eros Hoagland, Michael Christopher Brown and Veronique de Viguerie. Cinematographer is Jared Moosey and composer is Antonio Pinto. An HBO Documentary Films presentation.