Discovering Dominga is essential viewing for anyone interested in international justice and human rights. For everyone else it might just be the eye opener that will pique your interest.

A young Iowa housewife, Denese Becker comes to realise that she is in fact a genocide survivor from Rio Negro, a small Mayan village in Guatemala.

Born Dominga Sic Ruiz, she was adopted and brought to the United States two years after soldiers rampaged through the village killing innocent civilians. She escaped by fleeing on foot through the forested hills with her baby sister on her back, but both her parents were killed.

The Rio Negro massacre was just one of a systematic purge of about 500 villages across the country considered subversive by Guatemala's rulers during its 36 year civil war. This 57 minute documentary picks up some 20 years later when Denese/Dominga comes to the realization that her nightmares are actually part of her personal history and decides to reconnect with her native homeland.

Finding a story like this is the kind of luck most filmmakers only dream about. We witness Denese's transformation from a na?ve but curious Middle American mother to an activist for justice.

It's difficult to criticise this film - I did find myself distracted by my own irritation at American ignorance and arrogance regarding the world around them but the wider story of one of last century's most horrific and sustained periods of widespread human rights abuses needs to be told.

And having a subject with which western audiences can identify can't hurt. An important film, competently produced and directed by Patricia Flynn a veteran of the broadcast arts. Strongly recommended.