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Interview: Pamela Yates, Co-Director of “When the Mountains Tremble” - sundance.org. [Editor’s Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women documentary filmmakers in the 1980s who blazed trails for the craft by premiering their films at the Sundance Film Festival. Please read the main introduction to this feature here.]
Sep 20, 2023 · Pamela Yates is an award-winning film director and the co-founder of Skylight, a not-for-profit media organization that for over 35 years has combined cinematic arts with the quest for justice to inspire the defense of human rights.
- What Inspired You to Make The Film 500 years?
- Why Did You Choose The Title 500 years?
- At The Trial, They Used Footage from One of Your Past Films as Evidence.
- How Did This Trial Impact The Indigenous People of Guatemala?
- Can You Talk More About The Cultural Importance of The Land For Mayans?
- Has There Been Progress?
- What Were Your Main Challenges Throughout The Production Process?
- What Do You Hope The People Who Watch 500 Years Take Away from It?
500 Years caps a trilogy of films I made about Guatemala, a country I went to at a young age to investigate the role the United States played in destroying democracy there in the 1950s and in assuring a legacy of brutal military dictatorships. That was my aim initially, but when I got there, my eyes were opened to what an incredible, beautiful, spi...
Well 500 years is a meme, very well known among indigenous people and Native Americans, for the moment when the European conquest of the Americas and the genocide of the indigenous people began. I begin with the first trial against the perpetrator of genocide against indigenous people ever in the world, certainly in the Americas, taking place in Gu...
In 1982, I actually interviewed General Efrain Rios Montt, while he was president of Guatemala. I asked him a series of questions, and some of them he wasn’t answering, so I kept asking them, and eventually he admitted responsibility, saying, “If I don’t control the army, then what am I doing here?” This became key forensic evidence in the genocide...
It really widened the fight, and it really emboldened people as only a victory and a court case can do. Even though the verdict of guilty was vacated ten days after the sentenced was issued, for them, the fact that they sought justice, that their suffering in the genocide was acknowledged in this trial, and that Rios Montt was convicted and given a...
There’s always been this struggle for land because indigenous people were on the land, and they didn’t feel like they had to own the land. They wouldn’t say they were owners of the land, because they owned the land in community and collective. The indigenous people coming from the fertile coast were pushed into the mountains, and then in the mounta...
Absolutely, they won some really important victories. And one the things that they’ve done, is they’ve gotten international allies, like Canada, to bring legal suits against the companies that are based in those countries. So, for example, Hudbay, which is a Canadian Corporation doing mining in the highlands of Guatemala is now being taken to court...
Sometimes being a documentary filmmaker, you have to be persistent. You have to be patient. You have to have really good sources. You have to talk to your sources all the time, and you have to find people amongst your sources who are going to tell the story the best. Who are the best storytellers? Who are real visionaries like Irma Alicia Velasquez...
I want them to know that social change is a lifetime commitment. If the Mayans from Guatemala can resist for 500 years, we can certainly resist for the durations of our lifetimes. I want them to know that change is possible and that we actually can win. These are things that we should celebrate. These are things where Guatemala has led the way in t...
Sep 11, 2011 · Yates exhibits an entertainer’s wiliness by casting herself as the filmmaker opening up a door to the past (a fine hook), but she, to put it mildly, doesn’t have the charisma of a Stone or Moore, who often cast themselves as pretend everymen in their obsessive inquiries into governmental immorality.
Jul 11, 2017 · Directed by Pamela Yates. Documentary. 1h 45m. By Ken Jaworowski. July 11, 2017. Heavy with emotion yet light on information, “500 Years” has the curious effect of being both passionate and...
- Ken Jaworowski
- Pamela Yates
Director: Granito. Pamela Yates (Director) was born and raised in the Appalachian coal-mining region of Pennsylvania but left at a young age to live New York City. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, the Director of the Sundance Award winning "When the Mountains Tremble", the Producer of the Emmy Award winning "Loss of Innocence," and the Executive ...
Director Pamela Yates was born and raised in the Appalachian coal-mining region of Pennsylvania but ran away at 16 to live New York City. She is a co-founder, with Peter Kinoy, of Skylight Pictures, a New York City based company dedicated to creating films and advanced digital media that raise awareness of human rights issues.
