The film-maker, Pamela Yates, of Skylight writes on the 40th anniversary of her hugely important film, When the Mountains Tremble, and its relevance for today.
Although it’s been four decades since Mountains launched at the first Sundance Film Festival and received the Special Jury Award, its relevance endures in a world where democracies are increasingly under siege by authoritarian forces. In the cyclical tradition of the Mayan calendar, social processes that were coming into their fullness in Guatemala when the film was shot – the epic struggle of a people to assert their rights and self-determination – are again activated in a new “Guatemalan Spring.”
Let me explain. When the Mountains Tremble begins in the action. The “Guatemalan Spring,” a 10-year period where the country experienced democracy for the first time, has begun and with it basic reforms that are so threatening to the status quo and the U.S. government, that the elected leaders are overthrown by the Guatemalan military in a 1954 CIA-sponsored coup. The film then continues the story of how Guatemalans took up arms attempting to overthrow a brutal military dictatorship and take their country back. Maya K’iche’ leader Rigoberta Menchú was there; she tells the story.
This enduring classic of war and social upheaval made two things possible: it helped put Rigoberta on the world stage–ten years later she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992; and footage we shot for the film became key forensic evidence to help convict General Ríos Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013.
Today, Bernardo Arévalo, the son of Juan José Arévalo who kicked off the “Guatemalan Spring” as president in 1944, has become the president elect of Guatemala. He is set to take office in January, 2024. The entrenched business and political elite are doing everything they can to stop him and a peaceful transfer of power is not guaranteed. The cycle has come back around, the struggle to regain their democracy continues, and When the Mountains Tremble is as relevant today as it was in 1983.
You can read the full piece and the plans for commemorating the anniversary, here, When the Mountains Tremble: 40th Anniversary.
In addition, Vaclav Mašek, in his role as the International Volunteers Coordinator for Skylight’s VIVX program, has written three dispatches from Guatemala relating to the recent presidential elections and about Bernardo Arévalo’s political positions and his exciting non-stop campaign for President ending in victory.
You can read them here, the first, second, and third Dispatches from Guatemala.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Genocide, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Military, Mining, Poverty, Presidential Elections, Racism, Resource Extraction, Rios Montt, Solidarity in Action, Solidarity in Action/Guatemala, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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