Painful past casts a pall on present comforts

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.

Upon returning to Rio Negro, Denese shares bittersweet memories with relatives, then the story of the killings comes pouring out. Though peace accords brought Guatemala’s civil war to an uneasy close in 1996, her community still struggles to find justice, and an outraged Denese joins their fight.

She testifies in a human rights case brought against the Guatemalan military and joins relatives to demand the exhumation of the victims from a clandestine grave and their reburial in a new site called Monument to the Truth.

For Denese, honoring the truth is morally necessary but personally shattering. Though her husband has supported her journey to rediscover “Dominga,” the strains rip at their marriage. As Denese’s husband, Blane, reflects, “A war that happened so long ago has broken our family apart.”

Ultimately, “Discovering Dominga” reveals a quest for something beyond elusive justice. “I’m a pastor’s kid, and I was raised to forgive,” Denese says. “I guess that’s what I’m kind of searching for.”