Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
Granito: How to Nail a Dictator 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. In Granito our characters sift for clues buried in archives of mind and place and historical memory, seeking to uncover a narrative that could unlock the past and settle matters of life and death in the present. Each of the five main characters whose destinies collide in Granito are connected by Guatemala's past. In 1982, Guatemala was engulfed in an armed conflict during which a genocidal "scorched earth" campaign by the military killed nearly 200,000 Maya people including 45,000 disappeared. Now, as if a watchful Maya god were weaving back together threads of a story unraveled by the passage of time, forgotten by most, our characters become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought that they have pieced together, each adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale.
Running Time
105 mins
Year
2011
Kanopy ID
1143905
Filmmakers
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
Dictator in the Dock
The Dictator in the Dock short film series brings viewers into the courtroom as former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt stands trial for genocide and crimes against humanity in Guatemala. This historic case marked the first time, anywhere in the world, that a former head of state was tried for…
The Reckoning - The Battle for the International Criminal Court
Late in the 20th century, in response to repeated mass atrocities that convulsed the world, more than 120 countries united to form the International Criminal Court (ICC)--the first permanent, independent (treaty based) international criminal court created to prosecute perpetrators (no matter how powerful) of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and…
The Long Road Home: The Odyssey of a Young Guatemalan Maya Refugee
During the 1980's, the CIA backed the Guatemalan government's efforts to destroy the resistance movement that was growing among the indigenous Maya peoples. Human rights organizations around the world condemned the army's "scorch and burn" policy, whereby the government backed militia razed over indigenous 200 villages along the Mexican /…
Forsaken Cries: The Story of Rwanda
In 1994, close to one million people were killed in a planned and systematic genocide in the African country of Rwanda, the largest systematic murder of a single race since the Holocaust. How did this carnage occur when the world declared after WWII that it would never tolerate such mass…
O Prólogo - 1960's Brazillian Political Cinema
Brazil, 1961. The unexpected resign of conservative president Janio Quadros brings a man linked to the left party to occupy his place. A group of entrepreneurs and military create an Institute to warn the population about the dangers of Communism in Brazil. To make the message spread in such a…
Looking for Lara - A Guerrilla Fighter Struggling Against Brazilian Dictatorship
Lara Lavelberg -- a young, beautiful and highly-refined Jewish woman -- left a comfortable life to engage in the violent struggle against a military dictatorship in Brazil. Living underground, Lavelberg became the lover of former army captain, Carlos Lamarca, and became one of the government's primary targets.
Through a personal…
Verdict on Auschwitz - The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
The only documentary on the Auschwitz Trial held in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, from 1963 to 1965. Based on 430 hours of original audiotapes, this production is an unparellel document of the first Auschwitz Trial. In one of the most significant trials in German legal history, 360 witnesses from…
Verdict on Auschwitz - Abridged - The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
The only documentary on the Auschwitz Trial held in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, from 1963 to 1965. Based on 430 hours of original audiotapes, this production is an unparellel document of the first Auschwitz Trial. In one of the most significant trials in German legal history, 360 witnesses from…
The Last Survivor
The Last Survivor is an award winning, feature-length documentary film that presents the stories of genocide Survivors and their struggle to make sense of tragedy by working to educate a new generation, inspire tolerance and spark a civic response to mass atrocity crimes. Following the lives of survivors of four…
I Will Be Murdered - Murder in Guatemala
A murder story, a love story and a thriller.
In May 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy, charismatic lawyer went cycling near his home in Guatemala City and was murdered. Nothing unusual there: Guatemala has a murder rate four times higher than Mexico's, worse in fact than Iraq's for civilians during…
The Rock - The Isolation of Gibraltar From Spain
Despite being declared enemies by their countries, people in the Rock of Gibraltar and La Linea depended on each other, got married, and lived with their bilingual children. But Franco's decision to close entrance to the British territory forced the separation of thousands of mixed families. THE ROCK examines the…
The Day That Lasted 21 Years - How the US Propped Up A Latin American Dictatorship
Forty-five years after the 1964 Brazilian coup d'etat, top Secret CIA and White House telegrams reveal how U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon propped up the longest military dictatorships of South America, with the support of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Winner of Best Documentary from the Sao Paulo Association…