History can be especially compelling when it's personal. Witness the latest film in the "P.O.V." series, the story of an Iowa woman's return to the scene of a 1982 Guatemalan massacre that claimed her parents. "Discovering Dominga" (10 p.m., KCET) starts three years ago, when 27-year-old Denese Becker visited her native land, dreaming of rediscovering lost relatives and the life she left behind. Chronicled by producer-director Patricia Flynn, Denese's journey is a voyage of self-discovery that alters her relationship to her American family and a political awakening that sheds light on an act of genocide.
As a 9-year-old then named Dominga, she was orphaned when her family and thousands of other Mayans in the Rio Negro region were slain in the early 1980s by Guatemalan soldiers. After being adopted by a U.S. Baptist minister and his wife two years later, Dominga became Denese and adapted to Midwestern life. She grew up to become a wife, mother and manicurist, haunted by a half-forgotten past.
