Sometimes great documentaries have spectacular launches then fizzle and die, while a select few take off and not only reach a mass audience but deliver on the promise of its power to change. The Mexican documentary Presunto Culpable (“Presumed Guilty”) is flying at a heady altitude. After blazing trails and winning prizes at dozens of film festivals in 2009, being picked up for broadcast by the likes of UK’s Channel 4 and US public television network PBS in 2010, the film – remarkably for a home-grown documentary – secured theatrical distribution in Mexico, the place where it most needs to be seen, opening on February 18th 2011. Then, after two weeks in 200 cinemas nationwide, when it broke the box office record for a documentary with over 300,000 tickets sold (the proceeds of which will be donated to a foundation), a federal judge issued an order blocking further exhibition. It seems like the rotten legal system the film exposes, that presumes suspects guilty until proven innocent, is rearing its ugly head in response to the filmmaker’s barbs.