Film Distancia Tells Story of Guatemala’s Civil War

By Antonio Zavala, Voxxi

Tomas Choc an elderly man in a small town in Guatemala searching for his daughter, who he hasn’t seen in 20 years. He hopes against all odds that she is still alive.

Every day, he visits a site with unmarked graves that some young forensic archeologists are digging in hopes of identifying more victims of the country’s civil war that took 200,000 lives.

Twenty years earlier, the military kidnapped his daughter. She was 3 years old.

Word comes to Choc one day that his daughter, Lucia, may still be alive in the town of Nebaj. So Choc embarks on a 100-mile journey through the mountains and Mayan villages of Guatemala.

This is the premise of “Distancia” (2010), the award-winning first film by director Sergio Ramirez, of Guatemala.

The film, made on a shoestring budget with a crew of 10 and using two actors and people from the surrounding communities, has won many festivals prizes in Latin America, the United States and Europe. It recently won Best Picture and Best Direction at the Havana Film Festival of New York City and has won awards at the Miami International Film Festival and the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Cuba.

Ramirez has said he hopes the recognition will attract money to produce other films. He wants to do a story about a Guatemalan immigrant in New York City with filming in New York, Guatemala and Mexico.

In “Distancia” Choc leaves his humble home and starts on a journey through his Central American country. Full of quiet dignity and grandeur, he encounters people along the way who give him rides in trucks, cars and buses until he reaches Nebaj.

 Antonio Zavala writes for Voxxi, where this article first appeared.