One July morning, Portillo received a phone call informing her of the death of her favorite uncle from a bullet to the head. Officially ruled a suicide, Portillo's relatives claimed murder was the cause of death, offering several possible suspects including a business partner, a ranch hand, and Oscar's young widow who stood to inherit everything.
Traveling to Mexico, Portillo attempts to learn the truth about her powerful uncle. Using interviews, old snapshots and home movies, she finds a complicated web of family secrets, intrigue, rumor and betrayal that makes her enigmatic uncle's murder seem ever more likely, yet ever more obscure. The program chronicles a personal journey that reveals the filmmaker's own complex connections with Mexico--a place she finds beyond fact or fiction, where the truth is stranger than most melodramatic telenovelas and where, as the Mexican saying goes, "when evil is lurking, the devil never sleeps."
Directed, produced and written by Lourdes Portillo, THE DEVIL NEVER SLEEPS is presented on PBS stations by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and was produced with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.