''500 Years: Life in Resistance'' is a 2017 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Pamela Yates Pamela Yates is an American documentary filmmaker and human rights activist. She has directed films about war crimes, racism, and genocide in the United States and Latin America, often with emphasis on the legal responses. Biography Pamela Yat ...

about the trial of Guatemalan dictator

Efraín Ríos Montt José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods i ...

for genocide against the country's indigenous Maya population in the 1980s and the popular uprising that followed the trial, which led to the toppling of President

Otto Perez Molina Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded f ...

. The film was screened at the

Sundance A Sun Dance is a Native American ceremony. Sun dance or Sundance may also refer to: Places ;Canada *Sundance, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood *Sundance, Manitoba, a ghost town ;United States * Sundance, New Mexico, a census-designated place ...

and London

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

Film Festivals, and

Seattle International Film Festival The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees. The SIFF runs for more th ...

. It is the third film in a three film trilogy which also includes ''

When the Mountains Tremble ''When The Mountains Tremble'' is a 1983 documentary film produced by Skylight Pictures about the Guatemalan Civil War, war between the Guatemalan Military and the Mayan Indigenous population of Guatemala. Footage from this film was used as foren ...

'' and ''Granito: How to Nail a Dictator''. Its soundtrack features the music of the indigenous Guatemalan musician

Sara Curruchich Sara Curruchich (born 25 July 1993) is a Demographics of Guatemala, Guatemalan singer-songwriter of Kaqchikel people, Kaqchikel descent. She sings in both Spanish and the Kaqchikel language, and is one of the first musicians to use the latter in ...

References

External links

* 2017 films 2010s Spanish-language films 2017 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about human rights Documentary films about Latin American military dictatorships Spanish-language American films 2010s American films Guatemalan genocide {{hist-documentary-film-stub