Guatemala: Heart of the Mayan World

During the 2020 pandemic summer, El Colegio de la Desextinción infiltrated into the holidays of four Divine Caste’s descendants. This elite built its wealth on slavery in the sisal plantations of Yucatán, Mexico, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Every year these families move to their opulent summer houses at Chicxulub Puerto, built at the same place where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit. In these apocalyptic beaches, seducers of asteroids and conquistadors, we proposed the young heirs to write and star in a film about Chicxulub’s crater, in which they staged their entrepreneur fantasies.This documentary is the result of the political unconsciousness of this peninsular ethnic group.

A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.

MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint is a documentary about the controversial Maya deity, also known as San Simon or the drinking and smoking saint of Guatemala. He is a mixture of ancient Maya beliefs and Christianity. The movie concentrates on the people who surround Maximón with their strong personalities, opinions and faith. The documentary gives us a rare view into the rituals and fiestas honoring Maximón. The cult of Maximón is flourishing because he performs miracles. He is also feared and despised because he is used to cast curses that can result in death. Ultimately, Maximón transcends the duality of good and evil, reflecting the Maya cosmovision in which everything in the universe co-exists.

Jorge Luís Altuve is a young Guatemalan, passionate about mountaineering and a lover of his country. After the COVID-19 crisis and the lack of transparency in the execution of funds by the government of Alejandro Giammattei, he raised a wave of indignation that led thousands of Guatemalans to demonstrate. Jorge Luis attended the central square, when PNC agents began to intimidate the peaceful demonstrators. He and other citizens were arrested without having carried out an act of vandalism.

Denese Joy Becker, a manicurist living in Iowa, discovers she is indeed Dominga Sic Ruiz, a survivor from a 1982 Guatemalan massacre, when more than 200 people were killed in the small village of Rio Negro, after opposing the construction of a dam, sponsored by World Bank. She then tries to unveil the truth.

In a world drifting further away from participatory food production, relying instead on large corporations to feed us, this film asks “What do we lose by giving up our responsibility to produce food?”

Claudia Paz y Paz is the head of the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office. We follow her during her four-year mandate as the Attorney General of one of the world’s most dangerous countries. This documentary closely observes her attempts to break the downward spiral of a society where drug cartels, corruption and violence have become part of daily life. She manages to improve the country’s safety and justice issues but is met with much resistance. Her commitment to the rule of law is her strength as well as her destiny. At what price do four years of service as the Attorney General of Guatemala’s murder paradise come?

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.

"Mother Tongue" chronicles the first time a documentary film about Guatemalan genocide in Guatemala was translated and dubbed into Maya-Ixil—5.5% of whom were killed during the armed conflict in the 1980s. Told from the perspective of Matilde Terraza, an emerging Ixil leader and the translation project’s coordinator, "Mother Tongue" illuminates the Ixil community’s ongoing work to preserve collective memory.

In this Traveltalk series short, we visit a region in Guatemala where the native Indian tribes live like their ancestors, without using most of the benefits of modern man. They not only grow their own vegetables and catch animals to eat, they also cultivate the plants they need to weave fabrics and make natural dyes from various berries and seeds.

Five Years North is the coming-of-age story of Luis, an undocumented Guatemalan boy who just arrived alone in New York City. He struggles to work, study, and evade Judy - the Cuban-American ICE officer patrolling his neighborhood.

Every day dozens of decommissioned school buses leave the United States on a southward migration that carries them to Guatemala, where they are repaired, repainted, and resurrected as the brightly-colored camionetas that bring the vast majority of Guatemalans to work each day. Since 2006, nearly 1,000 camioneta drivers and fare-collectors have been murdered for either refusing or being unable to pay the extortion money demanded by local Guatemalan gangs. LA CAMIONETA follows one such bus on its transformative journey: a journey between North and South, between life and death, and through an unfolding collection of moments, people, and places that serve to quietly remind us of the interconnected worlds in which we live.

Focuses on 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, as she discusses the lack of human rights for the indigenous people of Guatemala and her commitment to the struggle for a more egalitarian society.

This FitzPatrick Traveltalk short visits Guatemala City, touching upon its sights, customs, and history.

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How do 1.1 billion people around the world live on less than one dollar a day? Four young friends set out to research and live this reality. Armed with only a video camera and a desire to understand, they spend just 56 dollars each for 56 days in rural Pena Blanca, Guatemala. They battle E.Coli, financial stress, and the realization that there are no easy answers. Yet, the generosity and strength of their neighbors, Rosa, Anthony and Chino gives them resilient hope. They return home transformed and embark on a mission to share their new found understanding with other students, inspiring and challenging their generation to make a difference.