Columbus on Trial is a film directed by Lourdes Portillo in 1992. The 18-minute film, acted and co-written by the comic trio Culture Clash, acts out a simulated trial that Christopher Columbus is put in as they lived through the 500th anniversary of his discovery. The film commences by portraying a variety of journalists and reporters questioning Columbus's motives. They bombard him with all the questions that have arisen over the previous 500 years in regards to the controversy of whether he really did discover the New World for the betterment of the people. This meaning that he introduced European customs and beliefs as a way to improve the lives of the natives already residing in it, or whether he simply invaded these territories in order to impose his own culture and destroy theirs. In