Uncovering the Guatemalan Genocide: An Interview with Pamela Yates

Documentary filmmaker Pamela Yates is in Buenos Aires for the 15th International Human Rights Film Festival. She is presenting her latest film, ‘Granito: How to Nail a Dictator’, in the official competition selection. Film writer Wendy Gosselin caught up with her to find out more about the story of this fascinating documentary.

Granito tells the story of the efforts by local Mayan activists, international lawyers and archivists, and the filmmaker herself to bring a case against former Guatemalan dictator Ríos Montt. What makes the film particularly compelling is that it also tells the story of the Yates’ first documentary, ‘When the Mountains Tremble’, filmed in 1981 during the genocide of the Mayan people by the Guatemalan military.

How did Yates first arrive to Guatemala thirty years ago and get pulled into the fray? “I had been working as a sound recordist for other people’s films in Central America in the late 1970s. And I really wanted to be a film director but I was just a lowly sound recordist.” Yates began hearing rumors about the hidden war going on in Guatemala, and she thought it was a film idea she would like to pursue. Plus, she was already familiar with the region from her previous work there.

Yates had just read the Stephen Kinzer novel ‘Bitter Fruit’, which recounts the 1954 American coup in Guatemala, the covert CIA operation that overthrew the Guatemalan president. A series of bloody military dictatorships had ensued, though none as bloody as what was rumored to be happening in Guatemala at the start of the 1980s. “That made me so angry that I wanted to go to Guatemala to meet the people who were rising up against the military dictatorship. I thought if I could just go and bring this story to the rest of the world, it would help tremendously. And I did have this responsibility as an American citizen. To right this historical wrong. And what do we do as filmmakers? We tell stories. That’s how we contribute to positive social change.”

Like the filmmakers of the movement known as Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, Yates was out to make a film whose impact would extend beyond movie theaters. ‘When the Mountain Trembles’ did just that: besides letting the world know what was going on in Guatemala—from the perspective of both the militants and the military—it also presented Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú to the world. “I think it’s really important for filmmakers to be connected with the people and the places where they make films. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go back and make another film—I didn’t know that I would ever go back to make this other film.”

After returning to the United States in 1982, Yates continued to work on extraordinary films. She was the executive producer of ‘Witness to War’, an Academy Award winning documentary which tells the story of an American doctor who crossed enemy lines in Nicaragua to provide medical assistance to the injured.

She also made films about her home country. “The U.S. has important social issues that need to be addressed and the thing that has always captivated me, the great tragedy of the United States, is how many poor people there are in the world’s richest country. So in the 1990s, I made a film about the poor people’s movement, which was trying to grow and address that, that is, trying to understand why they were left out.”

However, Yates always followed the current events in Guatemala. “It’s important to stay connected. And whether you make another film about it or you just stay in touch with people, or you keep up with what’s actually happening and what can be done about what’s happening—that’s important.”

In 2003, she was contacted by a lawyer who wondered whether some of the footage not included in When the Mountains Tremble could be used as part of the case being constructed against former dictator Ríos Montt and the high ranking military officers. As a young and purportedly naïve American, Yates had been given free rein to film the military during their missions.

The result was Granito. The title refers to the phrase “granito de arena” (‘grain of sand’), which Yates had heard over and over again from the people in the mountains thirty years ago. “I would be up in the mountains, and I would ask the people, ‘Why are you risking your life to go up against a powerful military dictatorship?’ You know, they’re living out in the elements, they don’t have enough to eat, it’s a scary existence. And they would say they just wanted to add their granito de arena.”

“Granito: How To Nail A Dictator” theatrical trailer courtesy of Skylight Pictures (also on Vimeo).

Yates had internalised this Mayan concept, the notion that we all have something to contribute. “So I thought it would be really important to call this film that. Both as an homage to the Mayans—who had never given up on their quest for justice—and as sort of a tribute to 30 years of filmmaking as well.”

In Granito, we see Yates going through canister after canister of old film reels, searching for evidence that could be used in the trial. Her hands carefully weave the film around the projector. This is also a personal reflection of her life as a filmmaker. There are many shots of Yates recording sound during ‘When the Mountains Tremble’. Some of her equipment has been stolen so she is forced to slap on the microphone at the start of every “scene.” This young version of Yates striking the microphone—and the resounding clap every time she does—feels almost like a wake-up call to viewers to realise what is going on around them.

Yates feels very fortunate to have come of age in parallel with the growth of the human rights movement worldwide. “The people of that movement have really inspired me, they have often become subjects of the films I am making and I hope that the films I make will help grow the human rights movement and people’s consciousness of human rights – what it is, how broad a subject. We are really human rights filmmakers. You know how some people are human rights’ lawyers? Their practice in law is their contribution. Well, our contribution is film and advanced digital media. That’s really how we see ourselves.”

The expansion of the human rights movement has coincided with an explosion of documentary filmmaking. “Documentary films are getting better and better, and the audiences are much more tolerant of different documentary styles, and I think that that’s had an effect on human rights filmmaking. The Buenos Aires festival is one of several international human rights film festivals that just raise the whole field.”

You can see Granito: How to Nail a Dictator during the 15th International Human Rights Film Festival. Viewings are scheduled for Saturday 10th August at 10pm (Cine Gaumont), and Monday 12th at 8pm (Alianza Francesa).

For more info on the film, visit the Skylight Pictures website. See all the ‘Dictator in the Dock‘ web series documenting the trial of Ríos Montt earlier this year.

Click to find out more about the film’s companion project ‘Granito: Every Memory Matters‘, a public online archive created across generations to uncover the stories of the Guatemalan genocide.

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