AUSTIN, Texas — The country that was at one time the United States is divided into warring factions, with a violent no man’s land dividing the two sides. That’s the premise of the new limited series “DMZ," which premiered Sunday at SXSW and will begin streaming on HBO Max on Thursday.  

What You Need To Know

  • “DMZ” is a new limited series from HBO Max 

  • Based on a comic book, “DMZ” is about a mother trying to reconnect with her lost son in a violent DMZ created when the United States split apart

  • Rosario Dawson, Benjamin Bratt, Freddy Miyares and Hoon Lee star

  • The show premiered during SXSW and makes its streaming debut on HBO Max this week

Rosario Dawson stars as Alma Ortega, who was separated from her teenage son four years earlier when the country was split apart. With fighter planes tearing across the New York City skyline, Alma was able to escape to Brooklyn, but her son wasn’t so lucky.

As the show’s namesake DMZ, Manhattan is unrecognizable. It’s overgrown with weeds, fallen street signs, toppled buildings and cars abandoned by the side of the road, but Dawson’s character is compelled to find her son, even if it’s in a lawless place run by competing militias who prey on their enemies with guns.

With the real U.S. increasingly divided between conservatives and liberals over cultural issues such as racial justice, and the Russian war on Ukraine escalating by the day, the show’s divisive themes seem especially apropos. Benjamin Bratt plays a Spanish Harlem king who thrives on the chaos of war, having underlings like the Skel character played by Freddy Miyares do his violent bidding.  

“The one thing it shows is the futility of war. It’s been ever present since the dawn of civilization. That’s how society settled its differences,” Bratt said during a roundtable with writer Roberto Patino and co-stars Dawson, Miyares and Hoon Lee at SXSW. “What I really love about this show is it presents a potentially alternative way of moving forward as a society.”

Based on the dystopian comic book series by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. “DMZ” is executive produced by Ava DuVernay, Ernest Dickerson and Patino, who also wrote the four-episode series around themes of oppression.

“It’s a very human tendency to feel like I need to get mine. The other way of going is let me recognize the power that we have as a community and break through that glass together,” Patino said during the roundtable, adding that the show has no answers. It just presents a lot of questions.

“It’s a conversation I’m very interested in having,” he said.

The pilot episode that premiered during SXSW was filmed right before the pandemic. Nine hundred extras were used to shoot the first episode during the scene where Dawson’s character is separated from her son. The next episode wasn’t shot for another 18 months.

“I remember going to New York right after shooting the pilot and it was a ghost town,” said Miyares, who plays a thuggish DMZ dweller in a show set in New York City. “It was fascinating to be in that space at that time and think, ‘there is this possibility.’”

Dawson said it was “a stark pivot” to shoot the first episode walking through hundreds of people compared to the COVID protocols that exist today.

A lot took place during that shooting break. The pandemic worsened. George Floyd was murdered, inspiring racial justice protests throughout the world. Joe Biden was elected president, only to have President Trump contest the results and insurrectionists storm the capitol.

Throughout it all, Dawson was sending Patino articles “about what was going on politically, the different factions and tribalization and division going on in the country,” she said.

The comic version of DMZ, upon which the HBO Max series is based, came out 16 years ago, but its dystopian themes seem more and more like a possibility, Dawson added.

“We’re in Texas. I used to live here, and I would hear all the time, ‘The south will rise again,’” she said. “It’s a very real conversation that is very much alive and you’re seeing it play out on the world stage with migration and war and resources."

In the first episode of DMZ, characters are not able to move freely between the USA and the DMZ. The border keeps moving. Residents barter light bulbs and scavenge for supplies, and meals are prepared from hunted deer cooked on a spit in Central Park.

DMZ “is way more about life imitating art and art imitating life than probably anything ever,” Dawson said.

“Probably more than any of us were comfortable with,” Patino added.

“It really was disconcerting and uncomfortable at times,” Dawson continued, “including even the timing of presenting the show. What’s going on in the world right now is we’re putting out a trailer that’s about war and division and trauma. It’s really trying.”