“‘History is made at the grassroots level. The other side, government relationships, is what you see most often on television...Rather than hide our point of view...(Tom Sigel and I) decided to be very open about what we thought and show a side rarely seen.'” Pam Yates
“Evolving out of the Emmy award-winning show, CBS Reports: Guatamala, When the Mountains Tremble weaves together interviews, archival footage, dramatizations and surreptitiously shot footage to reconstruct that nation's 30 year history of civil strife. Featured are amazingly candid interviews with military and church officials, U.S. businessmen, and members of the opposition, as well as the first documentation of guerrilla organization among the highland Indians. What holds these disparate elements together and infuses the film with a personal tenor is the narration of 23-year-old Rigoberta Menchu, a Quiche Indian, a Christian activist and one of the opposition's most articulate voices. Her eloquent account of her people's history of oppression, poverty and death is amplified by personal examples from her own life, lending poignant credence to the film's images. ‘Dedicated to the thousands of Guatemalans who risked their lives in order that we might tell their story,' When the Mountains Tremble stands on the cutting edge of films on Central America. Sigel and Yates (who, with Deborah Shaffer, also co-directed and co-produced, respectively, Nicaragua: Report from the Front), spent six months filming in Guatemala; the result is a portrait whose technical brilliance and startling candor belie the risks encountered by filmmaker and subject alike.” Laura Thielen