'The Art Of Political Murder' Trailer: George Clooney Executive Produced This HBO Doc About A Murdered Bishop

HBO's collection of new crime-centric documentaries continues next month with The Art of Political Murder, which recounts the 1998 murder of Juan Gerardi, a Guatemalan bishop and human rights activist who was killed for blaming the country's military for some of the atrocities in its brutal, multi-decade civil war. George Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov executive produced this documentary, and a new trailer has been released which you can watch below.

"Bishop Juan Gerardi tried to expose crimes and corruption in Guatemala and paid for it with his life," Clooney said in a statement. "Grant and I are proud to help show his courage to the rest of the world."

Two days after he published a report that cast blame on the Guatemalan military, Gerardi was beaten to death in a church garage. The crime scene was not properly handled, and the co-authors of the report began to suspect that the real cause of his death was being covered up. Through a mixture of archival photos and footage and new interviews with those co-authors and investigators, this documentary highlights how they began to uncover corruption and deception which put their lives in danger. Hearing one of them talk about how a gun was put into the mouth of his four-year-old son is pretty damn harrowing here, and the doc is supposedly full of "startling twists and surprises, exposing the violence and corruption of post-war Guatemala's fragile democracy through a case that would become a symbol of the country's struggle for accountability and justice."

Here is the official description:

Based on Francisco Goldman's award winning book of the same name and executive produced by Oscar® winners George Clooney and Grant Heslov, tells the story of the 1998 murder of Guatemalan human rights activist Bishop Juan Gerardi, which stunned a country ravaged by decades of political violence, and the fight for justice that ensued.

This is a part of HBO's loose anthology of crime-related documentaries which are being doled out from November and into December, which also includes Crazy, Not Insane (available now), The Mystery of D.B. Cooper (November 25), Baby God (December 2), and Alabama Snake (December 9). Paul Taylor (We Are Together) directs this documentary, and it is produced by Teddy Leifer (The Invisible War, Icarus) and Regina K. Scully (The Vow, The Tale, On the Record).

The Art of Political Murder premieres on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max on December 16, 2020.