Don't Tell My Mother

Did You Know?

• In Season 4, Buñuel spends 28 days in Antarctica, finding shelter and friends in the zero emission base that 27 scientists call home.
• In Season 4, Buñuel takes a journey through the war-ravaged countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
• In Season 4, Buñuel explores Ukraine.

Development

Diego Buñuel spent a decade as a foreign correspondent for French television, covering places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Congo. Before each assignment, he would ask his Paris production crew not to tell his mother where he was going, because it made her anxious. Over time, he noticed that international news coverage—including his own—only highlighted the worst stories from these countries. So he set out on a different kind of project: to visit the same headline-making nations but look beyond the usual three or four grim narratives, focusing instead on culture, people, and interests that get overlooked in daily news reports. The show travels to fast-growing mega-cities, some struggling with the pressures of millions of residents, but all filled with newcomers chasing opportunity. Buñuel has spent a night in a dangerous part of São Paulo with graffiti artists pushing for social change, dressed in drag in Dhaka, and drag-raced through Johannesburg. He says travel is his passion, and he is drawn to the remarkable stories every country offers. That drive took him to Pakistan, Venezuela, Iraq, and elsewhere, meeting fascinating people along the way. Because these trips sometimes led to dangerous places, he never told his mother his exact location, and he asks viewers to keep that secret too. In Colombia, known for drugs and violence, he met a tailor who makes bulletproof clothing, patrolled with farmers destroying cocaine plants in mine-filled guerrilla territory, visited Pablo Escobar’s abandoned home with its dinosaur statues and pet hippos, and talked to a former Escobar gunman who now teaches children. In Afghanistan, he traveled from Kabul to Kandahar, visiting a golf course, meeting a female army helicopter pilot, interviewing a Mullah Omar look-alike, and finding the first nightclub open to Afghans. In the Congo, he explored a country marked by gang violence and political instability. In Pakistan, he moved from Karachi to the Himalayas to challenge stereotypes. In North Korea, he posed as an actor, attended a Catholic mass led by party members, saw a shooting game called “Kill American Imperialism,” and watched 100,000 dancers in the world’s largest stadium. In the Holy Land, he met a printer of martyr posters, a Christian brewer, a donkey rescuer, and rappers at a bachelor party. In Venezuela, he witnessed a socialist protest, sneaked across the Colombian border to investigate gas smuggling, and saw former sugar cane workers reclaim land with machetes and VHS tape.

Season 1

Colombia’s reputation for danger is well-founded, rooted in drug trafficking, kidnapping, and gun violence. Buñuel gets an early taste of this world when he meets a tailor who makes bulletproof clothing. In a country that supplies 80% of the world’s cocaine, he joins farmers patrolling mine-filled guerrilla territory, destroying coca plants one by one. In Medellín, he explores the abandoned home of drug lord Pablo Escobar, walking through a dinosaur park filled with towering statues and visiting Escobar’s pet hippos. He also meets a former hitman for Escobar who now teaches the children of his fallen comrades. Traveling along Dead Man’s Road to Cali, Buñuel learns that the wrong time of day can get you kidnapped. Kidnapping is so common that a radio station runs a “Hostage Voices” program, allowing families to send messages to captives. Despite a civil war dividing the country, Colombia has made progress: at Picalena Prison, a warden unites right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas through an unlikely tool—soccer.

Buñuel then takes a 52-minute drive from Kabul to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, stopping in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat. He visits a Kabul golf course, meets a female army helicopter pilot, interviews a man who spent two years in hiding as Mullah Omar’s look-alike, and checks out the first nightclub open to Afghans. Through these stories, he explores a country often reduced to burkas, bearded fighters, and poppy harvests.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Buñuel travels through a region plagued by gang violence and political instability. Finally, he goes to Pakistan to challenge stereotypes, roaming from Karachi to Hyderabad, Lahore, Islamabad, and ending in the Pakistani Himalayas.

Season 2

Johannesburg has grown into Africa's leading economic center. Tokyo holds the title of the planet's largest city. In one location, Buñuel investigates a place where history and the present merge, making the boundary between reality and science fiction feel very slight. He travels to Lagos to understand why so many people move there daily, despite the city's heavy traffic, poverty, and pollution. Buñuel gets a firsthand look at what the city is actually like. In Mexico City, he crawls through sewers and flees from canine immigration officers to see how inventive its residents truly are. He spends time with graffiti artists in São Paulo, dodging gunfire as he looks for a shared link between the city's extreme wealth and poverty. In Beirut, Buñuel goes from the coast to the mountains, encountering surprising black-market traders and a gay community preparing the first commercial to promote gay tourism there. He examines both the ancient and modern sides of Cairo. His journey in Dhaka starts in a district where the phrase "urban jungle" takes on a literal meaning, as macaque monkeys have taken over. Manila struggles with some of the worst urban challenges globally, but Buñuel soon discovers the city and its people have an energetic and quirky character.

Season 3

The program examines Indonesia’s culture, exports, and rainforest wildlife, while raising doubts about certain government and policy choices. It opens in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, where fighting persists between Islamist revolutionaries and government forces, showing the war zone. Next, it follows Puntland, depicting the government’s struggle against sea piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Then it moves to Somaliland, where Buñuel is unguarded, a place completely unlike the rest of the country. The episode begins again in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, then visits the Soviet nuclear town of Semipalatinsk, illustrating the nation’s growth and progress toward a new Kazakhstan. Another segment covers post-communist Russia, focusing on materialism, the arms trade, and the vast territory between Moscow and Siberia. Finally, the episode addresses the fence along the USA-Mexico border, which cuts off American soil, and the world’s first commercial spaceport.