* French documentarian Christian Poveda was shot by suspected Salvadoran gang members with links running right here to Southern California. Poveda joins the very small group of directors who have been murdered because of their filmmaking and/or writings. You’ll remember the case of abrasive, iconoclastic Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gough, murdered by an Islamic extremist with alleged ties to terrorist groups. Also, journalist Doug Ireland has pointed to a possible fascist connection to the 1975 murder of openly gay “Catholic Marxist” writer-director Pier Paolo Pasolini.

* Variety reports that Filipino-Canadian critic Alexis Tioseco and his partner, Slovenian writer Nika Bohinc, were murdered Wednesday when they surprised burglars at their home in Manila. Though I wasn’t acquainted with their work, this nevertheless hits a little closer to home for me. Fellow critic and cinephile blogger Noel Vera has a remembrance of Tioseco, who was only 28.