500 Years
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“The Kind of Craziness I Love to Photograph”: DP Rene Soza on 500 YEARS
Cinematographer Rene Soza served as one of two DPs on 500 YEARS, the third film in a documentary trilogy on Guatemala from director Pamela Yates. The film explores the historical significance of the war crimes trial of general and former president (1982-1983) Ríos Montt and the toppling of recent president (2012-2015) Otto Pérez Molina. Soza spoke with Filmmaker about his connection to this material and his aim to “visually communicate the electricity of speaking out and taking to the streets.” 500 YEARS screens five times during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 27, 2017 -
“Editing Is an Unending Series of Difficult Decisions”: Editor Peter Kinoy on 500 YEARS
For director Pamela Yates and her colleagues at Skylight, 500 YEARS marks the end of a documentary trilogy on Guatemala. The film follows When the Mountains Tremble (1983) and Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011), both of which screened in previous years at the Sundance Film Festival. Veteran documentary editor Peter Kinoy edited all three films. Below, he discusses Skylight’s unique model as both a human rights organization and a film production company. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Kinoy: I […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 25, 2017 -
“Profound Communication Only Happens When There Is Persistence”: Director Pamela Yates | 500 YEARS
During its development, production or eventual distribution, what specific challenge of communication did, or will your film, face? How did you deal with it, or how are you planning to deal with it? I often ask myself, how does each of us weave our own responsibilities into the pattern of history? How can I tell stories about human rights and the quest for justice yet engage people who are uninterested or apathetic? And the answer has always brought me back to this idea of the persistence of vision. Just as in cinema, believing that we will create a new art, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2017
