Cinema Guatemala

We will arrive in Guatemala City in the late afternoon and transfer to Hotel Barceló, one of the best hotels in the Guatemalan capital. Once we have checked in, we will have an informational meeting to discuss some travel details and dinner at the hotel.
Accommodation at Hotel Barceló.

Breakfast. On this first day we will discover Guatemala City, an architecturally and culturally hybrid city that oscillates between its colonial and Mayan past and a somewhat chaotic modernity. During the morning we will be accompanied on the tour by some of the protagonists of the films Coyote and Estrellas de la Línea. Coyote, premiered at the Berlin Festival, tells the story of Maco, a human trafficker, and three of his clients, whom he guides from Guatemala to the United States border, following a very particular and imaginative technique.
We will visit the location where we filmed Estrellas de la Línea. La Línea is a railway that splits the center of the city in two. On both sides of one section of that track there are about two hundred small rooms in which about that many women work in prostitution, providing services for less than five euros. During our film, a group of those women came together and formed a football team to draw attention and fight for their rights and dignity. Estrellas de la Línea impacted the conscience of many people and changed their lives: they became very famous locally, traveled around the world, and some, in the process, were able to leave prostitution.
In the afternoon we will fly to the Guatemalan jungle, specifically to the city of Flores, capital of the Petén department, which houses some of the most striking archaeological centers of the Mayan world.
Accommodation at Hotel Villa Maya.

Breakfast. We will wake up early to visit Tikal, the jewel of classical Mayan culture. In this city, with pyramids up to seventy meters high, about one hundred thousand people lived at its moment of maximum splendor, around the 6th to 9th centuries A.D. Pyramids, palaces, plazas, acropolis, ball courts... architecture from dreams hidden within the vegetation of a jungle that surrounds, attacks and protects it.
In a place so visually powerful, it is no wonder that numerous films have been shot. Perhaps the most well-known is Star Wars (1977), the first of the saga, whose producers used the pyramids and jungle of Tikal to represent the rebel base on the planet Yavin 4. Also Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942), a jewel in black and white that was one of the first shoots in which Hollywood abandoned studios for natural settings. Petén was also the location for Moonraker (1979), with a James Bond played by Roger Moore. Lunch within the archaeological site itself. In the afternoon we will travel to Lake Petén Itzá to take a boat ride and enjoy the sunset on the island of Flores.
Accommodation at Hotel Villa Maya.

Breakfast. In the morning we will fly back to the capital to travel to Lake Atitlán, specifically to the Kaqchikel village of San Lucas Tolimán, where we filmed the movie The Giants Do Not Exist. Considered one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, Lake Atitlán stretches across the Guatemalan highlands like a natural jewel, framed by the imposing silhouette of the Atitlán, Tolimán and San Pedro volcanoes. Its deep waters, in tones that vary between intense blue and emerald green, reflect the sky and the mountains that surround it. Around its shores various indigenous peoples are settled, mainly from the Kaqchikel and Tzutujil ethnicities, whose inhabitants move between their ancestral traditions and the thrust of modernity. Today we will visit some of the locations where we filmed the movie The Giants Do Not Exist. The script, based on real facts, is inspired by the life of Jesús Tecú, one of the few survivors of the Río Negro massacre in 1982, during the Guatemalan Civil War, in which 177 women and children died. In our film, the protagonists are an eleven-year-old Jesús and another eight-year-old boy. Jesús lives with Pedro González and María, his wife, in an isolated house in the mountains. We will climb with some of the film's protagonists to Cerro Iquitiú. This is where Pedro and María's house was located in the fiction. The path to the summit of the hill is very pleasant. Upon reaching the top, the view is spectacular, with the cone of Tolimán volcano directly ahead and Lake Atitlán in the distance. The house no longer exists; we built it for the film, but in the space where it was located we will perform a Mayan ceremony like the one the local team celebrated at the beginning of filming. Back then, the intention was to seek the protection of Mayan deities. After the ceremony, we will descend from the hill and travel to the town of San Lucas and stay at Hotel Tolimán.

Breakfast. Today we will travel across Lake Atitlán by boat and visit the towns of Santiago and San Pedro. In San Pedro we will meet the protagonists of the documentary The Guardians of the Lake, which tells the story of the struggle of a group of indigenous Maya Tzutujil women to protect Lake Atitlán from plastic pollution. The lake, as described earlier, is one of the most beautiful in the world, but faces a risk of environmental deterioration that these women are trying to combat. Both San Pedro and Santiago are nestled on the slopes of two volcanoes and are very beautiful visually. After visiting San Pedro, we will continue sailing towards Santiago. Most of Santiago Atitlán's population belongs to the Tzutujil ethnicity, and many of its inhabitants preserve their ancestral traditions, including the use of traditional clothing and the practice of Mayan rituals. One of the most distinctive elements of their culture is the veneration of Maximón, a syncretic deity that combines elements of Mayan cosmovision and Christianity. We will return in the afternoon to San Lucas Tolimán, as attractive as San Pedro and Santiago, but much quieter. In San Lucas we will visit a coffee cooperative and enjoy a tasting.
Accommodation at Hotel Tolimán.

Breakfast. In the morning we will travel to Chichicastenango, famous for its traditional market and its profound Mayan heritage, which coexists with colonial elements. Some scenes from Tarzan's New York Adventure were filmed here. Chichicastenango is one of the places where Mayan cosmovision has resisted most strongly despite colonization. Its market, held on Thursdays and Sundays, is one of the largest and most famous in Latin America. There you can buy crafts, embroidered textiles, ceremonial masks, fruits, vegetables, incense, flowers and all kinds of traditional products. After finishing the market visit, we will continue our journey to Antigua Guatemala, one of the most exquisite colonial jewels of Latin America. We will stay at Hotel Villa Colonial, styled in the old manner with interior courtyards and lush gardens.
Accommodation at Hotel Villa Colonial.

Breakfast. Antigua Guatemala, founded in the 16th century at the foot of the imposing Agua, Fuego and Acatenango volcanoes, displays an orderly layout of cobblestone streets and quiet plazas, where each building, each ruin and each corner seems to tell fragments of its history. Walking through its churches, convents and Baroque palaces is stepping into a time bubble. We will also get to know it through cinema. Numerous films have been shot in Antigua and its surroundings, from major Hollywood productions to Guatemalan films with great international reach. One of these latter films is Ixcanul, one of the best Latin American films of the 21st century, winner of the Silver Bear in Berlin. Ixcanul tells the story of María, a 17-year-old Mayan girl who lives with her parents on a coffee plantation on the slopes of Pacaya volcano, near Antigua Guatemala. Destined for an arranged marriage with the plantation foreman, María dreams of escaping her fate and seeing the world beyond her community. The cast was composed mainly of non-professional actors from local indigenous communities. Lunch at Fonda de la Calle Real restaurant accompanied by some of the protagonists of Ixcanul. In the afternoon we will screen The Giants Do Not Exist at a local cinema accompanied by some of the film's protagonists. Farewell dinner.
Accommodation at Hotel Villa Colonial.

Breakfast. Transfer to the airport and end of our trip.