Celebrated for her extensive catalogue of award-winning documentaries and human rights activism, filmmaker Pamela Yates appears tonight for the Buffalo premier of "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator."
Yates' early work earned accolades in the 1980s as she documented Guatemala's civil war that left over 200,000 dead and the international community seeking to prosecute the nation's leaders for war crimes.
"Granito," Yates says, examines how that case has been built.
"It's a political thriller and that's the way the story is told,” Yates told WBFO and AM970 News.
“And it is also a story that has a high amount of hope because I feel like what the Guatemalans have done, and the fact that they've never given up, is heroic. It makes for very good and important film material."
Buffalo native Julia Hall of Amnesty International will introduce Pamela Yates at the 7pm screening at the Market Arcade.
On Friday morning at 10, Yates will show film clips and discuss her work in detail in a free class at UB's Center for the Arts.
The appearances are part of the International Women's Film Festival, sponsored by the Gender Institute at the University at Buffalo.
