The Mexican Dirty War (1964-1982) was a conflict between the Mexican government (the Partido Revolucionario Institutional, or PRI) and leftist guerilla and student groups. Like other “dirty wars” across Central and South America, the Mexican Dirty War was a theater of the Cold War, with the US-backed PRI trying to quash communist, Marxist, and leftist groups across the country. The Mexican Dirty War, much like the contemporaneous Argentine Dirty War, resulted in the forced disappearances of students and activists—in the case of the Mexican Dirty War, an estimated 1,200 people were disappeared by the government. Many of these people were likely tortured and murdered.

The Mexican Dirty War was defined by two government-led crackdowns on student protests in Mexico City: the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968 and the Corpus Christi Massacre on June 10, 1971. Velvet Was the Night begins on the date of the second massacre and follows Elvis, a member of a paramilitary group called the Hawks (Los Halcones). During the Corpus Christi Massacre, the Hawks attacked the student protestors, first with blunt instruments and then with high-caliber rifles. Nearly 120 protestors were killed, including injured protestors taken to hospitals who were tracked down by the Hawks and murdered while hospitalized.