Lopez to receive human rights award

updated 6:43 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2007

Jennifer Lopez will receive an award for her work as producer and star of a film examining the murders of hundreds of women in a Mexican border town, Amnesty International officials said Friday.

Lopez will receive the Artists for Amnesty award Feb. 14 at the Berlin Film Festival from Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta. The film “Bordertown” will make its debut Feb. 15 at the festival.

In “Bordertown,” Lopez plays an investigative journalist reporting on the serial killings of women in the border city of Juarez, Mexico. Directed by Gregory Nava, the film also stars Antonio Banderas and Martin Sheen.

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“Since first hearing of these atrocities in 1998, when Gregory Nava came to me with this project, I desperately wanted to tell this story,” Lopez said. “I began working to ensure we made this film in order to bring the attention of the world to this tragedy and to pressure the Mexican government to bring to justice those responsible for these horrible crimes.”

Lopez, 36, screened the film for some of the mothers of women killed in Juarez and will receive special recognition from Norma Andrade, co-founder of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Bring Our Daughters Home), an organization comprising mothers and families of the murdered women of Juarez.

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