Hot weather, hot food and hot music... such are the combustible ingredients that make up the cultural stewpot along the Rio-Grande - 1,000 miles of liquid border separating Texas and Mexico. Like most border regions, the Tex-Mex border is marked by violence, illegal immigrants, drug running and shady business dealings. Against this background, Mexican and American cultures have mingled to produce Tex-Mex music, an exuberant style with a Mexican soul and a rock'n' roll heart. Tex-Mex is a street-level tour of the border world, through cantinas, prisons, festivals, even brothels where Tex-Mex music grows. Caught in performance and intimate conversation are Tex-Mex star Flaco Jimenez, legendary singer Lydia Mendoza, Frank Rodarte, hero of the Low Riders, political firebrand Little Joe Hernandez and many other great performers of norteno, corrida and other Tex-Mex styles.

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. Who could guess, for instance, that some of the world's most exuberant, joyous sounding musics would spring from one of the worst concentrations of organized crime and drug trade in the world? It was precisely this contradiction which led filmmaker Jeremy Marre to venture to the Valledupar Region of Columbia in to the midst of all-night dances, cockfights, cocaine-processing labs and the often-violence-marred, often-fixed musical competitions for vallenato music- the hot, jumpy dance music which mixes accordions, electric bass, percussion and lusty, open-throated vocals. "Shotguns and Accordions" is a starling look at a a region where music can literally be a life-or-death affair.