The Earth Did Not Speak

In Guatemala in the early 1980s, nearly 200,000 indigenous people were murdered in a series of massacres, the Mayan genocide, under the military rule of infamous general Efraín Ríos Montt. The Earth Did Not Speak gives voice to those who survived the 1982 massacre of 177 Maya Achi in the town of Rio Negro. When the community decided to resist forced relocation for the construction of the Chixoy Dam, the military retaliated. This silent and observational film tells the stories of the children who hid in the mountains and watched as their mothers were abused and murdered, then witnessed the flooding of their ancestral homeland. An exquisite mix of natural sound and visuals is interrupted by the voices of Rio Negro’s survivors. The film flows quietly, revealing the devastating emotional and environmental impact of the massacre and the way the Maya Achi are coping with trauma by remembering and rebuilding their town on the banks overlooking the dam.