The body of Poveda, 52, was discovered in a car in Tonacatepeque, a poor rural area 10 miles outside the capital San Salvador. Police say that he was driving back from filming in La Campanera, an overcrowded ghetto that is a stronghold of the Mara 18 gang, when he was apparently ambushed.
Gangsters are suspected to be behind the killing. La Vida Loca focused on the tattooed members of Mara 18 gang. Several of the gangsters were killed or jailed during filming and the documentary records disturbing scenes of gang members gunned down in the streets, relatives crying over coffins and young female gangsters with tattooed faces, the report said.
In a statement, Wide Management said:
Christian [Poveda], was a militant, a war journalist engaged in a fair cause and wanted to calm the political and sociological tensions down in San Salvador, unfortunately, it leaded to his own death last night. Since his time as a journalist for Paris Match and Newsweek, covering already civil war in Salvador, Christian Poveda has been very moved by the young generation situation emerging from it and worried about the consequences of the war. La Vida Loca remains a testimony of this lost generation.
See some of the images from the film and the Mara 18 lifestyle on the La Vida Loca Flickr page.
Read the entire Times Online article here.
An article in the Los Angeles Times from April 2009 details the making of La Vida Loca and is accompanied by a video profile and interview.
Find out more about La Vida Loca on the film's official website.
The IDA's condolences go out to Poveda's family and friends.