Wednesday, November 5

Frye Art Museum

7:00PM
DISCOVERING DOMINGA

DISCOVERING DOMINGA

Director: Patricia Flynn
2002. USA. 58 min. English, Spanish and Mayan with English subtitles
7.00pm

A young Iowa mother discovers she is a survivor of one of the most horrific episodes in Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war. Denese Becher (born Dominga Sic Ruiz) was a nine-year-old Maya Indian girl living in a remote highland village in 1982 when soldiers and paramilitary patrollers killed her parents and more than 200 other villagers in what became know as the Massacres at Rio Negro. The young Dominga escaped to the mountains, running from army troops and at age eleven was adopted by a couple from Iowa. Dominga became Denese, with a new family and a new identity. Years later, housewife and manicurist Denese Joy Becker wonders whether her nightmares and scattered memories of the violence are true.

DISCOVERING DOMINGA documents Becker's personal odyssey from the cornfields of her adoptive Iowa to the highlands of Guatemala on a journey of self-discovery and political awakening. As she uncovers the truth of her past and the atrocities committed against the Mayan people, this shy young woman becomes a witness in a landmark human rights case that seeks to prosecute former military commanders responsible for the genocide.

A discussion on the current human rights situation in Guatemala with experts from Amnesty International will follow the screening.

Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Patricia Flynn
discoveringdominga@yahoo.com
www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/discoveringdominga