29 minutes / Color
Release: 1982
Copyright: 1982
AMERICAS IN TRANSITION provides a concise and fast-paced history of the volatile forces that rocked Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s.
Drawing on interviews with the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, former CIA director Lyman Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Murat Williams, and Maryknoll missioner Peggy Healy, the film examines the roots of dictatorship, attempts at democracy, communist influences, and the U.S. role in Latin American politics.
AMERICAS IN TRANSITION remains the best introduction to U.S. relations with Latin America, and the underlying causes of unrest there.
"An outstanding documentary! A coherent interpretation of an area whose problems have been obfuscated by incomplete media coverage and inconsistent U.S. policies."- Ardis Nelson, Florida State University
"Should be required viewing for every American."- Los Angeles Times
Select Accolades
Investigates the human rights and legal issues involved when two Salvadoran generals are sued in an American court for atrocities (such as the murder of four American churchwomen) committed during El Salvador's civil war.
Gail Pellett | 2002 | 86 minutes | Color | English
An oral history of the 1932 massacre of 10,000 El Salvadorans, a trauma that has resonated through six decades of military rule, until the 1992 peace accords ended a brutal, 12-year civil war.
Jeffrey Gould & Carlos Henriquez Consalvi | 2003 | 53 minutes | Color | English subtitles
The story of a small village in El Salvador, destroyed during the country's civil war, and its remarkable rebirth today.
Tatiana Huezo | 2012 | 104 minutes | Color | English; Spanish | English subtitles
