Original Documentary CRITICAL INCIDENT Sets HBO Debut

The HBO Original documentary Critical Incident, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Rick Rowley (“Dirty Wars”), will debut on Monday, December 29 (9:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. The film is a production of Crazyrose, Film 45, and Midnight Films.

Critical Incident revisits the 2010 death of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who died while in custody at the border. When eye-witness video emerges, it sparks a far-reaching investigation from a border checkpoint to Washington, D.C. 

Critical Incident chronicles journalists’, lawyers’, and family members’ efforts to explore the Border Patrol’s involvement in the incident, ultimately pointing to cover-ups and uncovering the existence of a little-known unit inside the agency that had been involved in other border-related incidents. In 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection disbanded the Critical Incident Teams, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held a hearing on the Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas case, ultimately calling for the reopening of the case and recognizing that Hernandez-Rojas’ human rights had been violated during his arrest.

HBO Documentary Films presents Critical Incident, in association with Crazyrose, Film 45, and Midnight Films. Executive produced and directed by Rick Rowley; senior produced by Juliana Schatz-Preston; produced by Karim Hajj; executive produced by A.C. Thompson, Nathan Ross, Jean-Marc Vallée, Michael Antinoro, and Missy Walker. For HBO: executive producers, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, and Tina Nguyen.