A Benefit for La Voz Popular
Tuesday, November 10, 2026 at 7pm
Light Industry, 361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
Introduced by Tobi Haslett
Caminos del silencio, Félix Zurita, 1987, digital projection, 59 mins
The title is literal. Caminos del silencio, or “paths of silence,” follows a group of indigenous peasants forced to flee their villages during Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war, who must live, pray, plant maize, and raise chickens in perpetual fear that their hiding place in the jungle will be discovered by the army. Félix Zurita’s film was made in 1987. That is, nine years before the end of the conflict and a mere five years after the most concentrated assault on Mayan people by the Guatemalan military under president Efraín Ríos Montt—a period of the war now designated a genocide. Though filmed after his ouster, Caminos del silencio reveals genocide’s dailiness and steadiness, how it pervades the war-torn landscape and saturates every second. The catastrophe is presented as a total experience, one justified at every juncture by the state’s wish to rid the land of communism. In response to Mao’s famous dictum that the guerilla moves among the people like a fish in water, Ríos Montt declared: “If you cannot catch the fish, you must drain the sea.”
1987 was also the first year of La Voz Popular, the pirate radio program produced by the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), the coalition of left-wing forces that after the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 sought to restore power to the country’s popular classes. Broadcast from the volcano Tajumulco, in the heart of the Sierra Madre, La Voz Popular was a crucial political and tactical tool for those fighting or fleeing the army. (A man interviewed in Caminos del silencio mentions that his family listens to the program for news of the army’s movements.) Light Industry’s screening is a fundraiser for an effort to build a museum in the Guatemalan highlands dedicated to memorializing La Voz Popular. All proceeds will be donated to this campaign.
- TH
Tickets - Contribute what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.
Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served, except for members subscribed at $8/month or more, who may reserve a seat by emailing information@lightindustry.org at least two hours prior to showtime. Box office opens at 6:30pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.