Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Central America / Guatemala / All Films

Evolution of Violence

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Evolution of Violence
Buy Now: $320.00

Evolution of Violence asks how violence becomes interwoven into the fabric of a society. Profiles and interviews reveal how individual lives are shaped by ongoing atrocities. Journalists wait to report on the next murder victim, a social worker helps the relatives of women who have been killed, former rebels mourn their comrades, and a war criminal has nightmares about all the things he's done.

While offering a profile of the ongoing violence in today's society, the film looks to historical events — told through the use of archival footage — from Guatemala's colonial history and place in the global banana trade, to the roots of its 36-year civil war, to try to understand how a culture of violence is created.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Nominee, Austrian Film Prize, "Best Documentary"
In Between the Seas Competition, Jihlava

Festival del Film Locarno – Semaine de la Critique
Muestra de Cine Europeo, Segovia
FIPATEL, Biarritz
Diagonale, Graz
DocuDays, Kiev
Doha - Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival
Muestra de Cine Internacional, Guatemala
Internationales Film Festival, Innsbruck
Open City Docs Festival, London
Document 10, Glasgow
Mar del Plata Film Festival

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Gods and Kings

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

Gods and Kings
Buy Now: $320.00

In the muddy market square of Momostenango, Guatemala, where shamans burn offerings in the shadow of the Catholic church, prehispanic gods dance beside horror movie monsters and dictators from the dark days of the Cold War. Unlike the folkloric performances long studied by anthropologists, this new dance won't show up on any postcard. In some villages, it's even been banned for frightening tourists. So how did these fiberglass masks of Xena: Warrior Princess come to be blessed in the smoke of Maya altars?

Presenting a striking case never before documented on film, Gods and Kings illuminates the way creations of mass-culture take on new meanings as they travel around the world. In a town where a Hollywood B-movie villain is a real evil spirit, stories can't be taken lightly and it always matters who's telling them.

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Popol Vuh

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

Popol Vuh
Buy Now: $275.00

This animated short from Chile tells the tale of creation based on "Popol Vuh: the Ancient Stories of the Quiché," written by the indigenous Maya Kʼicheʼ people after the Spanish Conquest. The vibrant illustrations are taken from Mayan codices, paintings found on vessels, and stones carved with scenes from the "Popol Vuh" between the years 300-900 A.D.

Accompanying the narrator is original music performed with pre-Columbian and other ethnographic instruments from the Americas. The text relates solely to the creation of the world and humankind, and gives the viewer a unique look into Mayan culture and history.

The story is told in its native Spanish language, with English subtitles. Perfect for the K-12 classroom.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Native American Film + Video Festival, Washington DC, November 2006

VIII Festival Internacional de Cine y Video de los Pueblos Indígenas, Mexico, 2006

Montreal First Peoples' Festival, Canada, 2007

Sin Fronteras Film Festival, New Mexico, 2007

Taiwan International Children's TV & Film Festival, 2008

Brooklyn International Film Festival, 2008

Latinamerika I Focus, Malmö, Sweden, 2008

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Tikal

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Tikal
Buy Now: $295.00

Tikal, the Mayan ceremonial center in the Peten lowlands of Guatemala, is famous for its monumental pyramids and stelae. Hidden in the jungle nearby are thousands of house mounds where, a millennium ago, worshippers and workers lived. This film focuses on the archaeology of one house mound excavated in 1960.

Tikal explores what we can learn from these domestic remains, particularly about the people who created and maintained this great intellectual and religious Mayan culture. This Special Edition DVD also features commentary by Karl Heider (26 min) and a narrated pictorial history (9 min) of Heider's career in archaeology and anthropology.

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Via Dolorosa

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:38:00 GMT

Via Dolorosa
Buy Now: $275.00

Every year, in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the "sorrowful way" of Good Friday is recreated by a path of colored sawdust and flower petals. Along this road several hundred people take turns carrying a ponderous mahoganybier. Indians from the surrounding countryside come to observe the spectacle of townspeople garbed in Biblical and Roman military uniforms. although some elements from this kind of procession have been borrowed by the Maya villagers, the contrast between the Spanish formality of this urban Via Dolorosa and the syncretic, lively, Indian festivities such as those in Tajimoltik could not be more striking.

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Brujo

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Brujo
Buy Now: $320.00

Brujo is an exploration of shamanism and curing among the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, and among two groups of Maya Indians in southern Mexico and Guatemala. The film is divided into three sequences. The first, filmed in Chichicastenango (Guatemala), shows Diego, a shaman, cure a woman on whom a spell has been cast. The cure takes place partly in a church and partly in the mountains, where a sacrificed chicken is used to bring back the ailing woman's spirit.
The second sequence moves to Oaxaca, where a Mazatec shaman, her husband, and her patient consume hallucinogenic mushrooms. The cure, which takes place in darkness, involves a simple song (the mushroom's "voice") and dance, flowers, and the rubbing of tobacco on both the patient and the shaman's husband.
The final sequence takes place in the Chiapas highlands of Mexico, site of the festival and film Tajimoltik. The filmmakers encounter shaman Miguel, who brings them to his family home in a mountain hamlet beyond Chenalho. There he undertakes to cure filmmaker Claudine Viallon of a migraine, using candles, eggs, and incense. Miguel also discusses conceptions of the soul, death, and transmigration.

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