Please join us for this special screening followed by a discussion with
PAMELA YATES
Director
PACO DE ONIS
Producer
6:30 - 7:00 p.m. | Registration and Cash Bar
Screening begins promptly at 7:00 p.m.
The Tribeca Grand Hotel
2 Avenue of the Americas (between White and Walker Streets)
New York, NY
SPECIAL ADMISSION
UNA Members: $10
UNA Student Members: FREE
Guests and Non-Members: $15
GRANITO is a story of destinies joined by Guatemala's past, and how a documentary film intertwined with a nation's turbulent history emerges as an active player in the present.
The horrors of Guatemala's civil war defy rationalization. Death-count estimates, numbering at least 200,000 Maya people exterminated by the military, far outstrip those of other Latin American dictatorships. Part political thriller, part memoir, GRANITO takes us through a haunting tale of genocide and justice that spans four decades, two films, and filmmaker Pamela Yates's own career.
GRANITO is a story of destinies joined together by Guatemala's past and of how a documentary film from 1982, When the Mountains Tremble, emerges as an active player in the present by becoming forensic evidence in a genocide case against a military dictator.
In an incredible twist of fate, Yates was allowed to shoot the only known footage of the army as it carried out the genocide. Twenty-five years later, this footage becomes evidence in an international war crimes case against the very army commander who permitted Yates to film.
Irrevocably linked by the events of 1982, each of the film's characters is integral to the country's reconstruction of a collective memory, the search for truth, and the pursuit of justice. Through the work of American filmmakers, forensics experts in Guatemala, and lawyers in Spain, the quest for accountability in Guatemala continues — with each individual contributing his or her own "granito," or tiny grain of sand to the epic tale.
Stephen Kinzer, co-author of Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, called the film a "hymn to the power of filmmaking… GRANITO is remarkable for allowing two intertwined stories, one global and the other personal, to unfold together. It presents the hurricane of violence that enveloped Guatemala 25 years ago not just as a historical horror, but as a lens through which the filmmaker examines herself, her values, and her relationship to her art. Subtle, provocative, and deeply original, it is a hymn to both the nobility of Guatemalans and the power of filmmaking."
GRANITO was one of the Official Selections of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
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UNA-NYC is grateful for the generosity of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, for allowing our organization the consistent booking of their state of the art screening room for our Film Talk series.
Nearest subway stations to access the Tribeca Grand Hotel area:
Canal Street station: A, E, C trains
Franklin Street station: No. 1 train
Also close, but requires a little walk:
Canal Street Station station: N, Q, R, W trains
View the Tribeca Grand Hotel neighborhood map and more directions