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Abstract
With the decline of the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela has become synonymous with catastrophe, yet contemporary Venezuelan cinema has received unprecedented international recognition and spectatorship. How Venezuelan film prospered in such circumstances? How can recent Venezuelan productions be regarded as a cohesive, collective movement, namely New Venezuelan Cinema? In what ways has this been marked by crisis? This article addresses these questions, offering an overview of the cinematic infrastructure in Bolivarian Venezuela, before proceeding to analyse Desde allá (Lorenzo Vigas, 2015) and La familia (Gustavo Rondón, 2016) as films that inquire into, and are marked by, the Venezuelan crisis.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 On international coverage of Venezuelan affairs, see Alan MacLeod, Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting (London: Routledge, 2018).
2 Patricia Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Subjetividades en crisis y conflicto social en el cine venezolano contemporáneo: Desde allá (2015), La familia (2017) y La Soledad (2016)’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 54:2 (2020), 409–29 (p. 410).
3 Núria Triana-Toribio, ‘Spanish Cinema of the 2010s: Back to Punk and Other Lessons from the Crisis’, in Contemporary Spanish Screen Media and Responses to Crisis and Aftermath, ed. Chris Perriam & Tom Whittaker, Hispanic Research Journal, 20:1 (2019), 10–25 (p. 11).
4 Joanna Page, Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema (Durham, NC/London: Duke U.P., 2009), 1–2. See also Jens Andermann, New Argentine Cinema (London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012); and Santiago Oyarzabal, Nation, Culture and Class in Argentine Cinema: Crisis and Representation 1998–2005 (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2020).
5 Olga Kourelou, Mariana Liz & Belén Vidal, ‘Crisis and Creativity: The New Cinemas of Portugal, Greece and Spain’, New Cinemas Journal of Contemporary Film, 12:1–2 (2014), 133–51 (p. 136).
6 Kourelou, Liz & Vidal, ‘Crisis and Creativity’. See also Lydia Papadimitriou, ‘Film Distribution in Greece: Formal and Informal Networks of Circulation Since the Financial Crisis’, Screen, 59:4 (2018), 484–505.
7 Spanish institutional support for all manner of cultural productions fell dramatically between 2007 and 2017. Filmmaking budgets were slashed and the price of cinema tickets went up with the increase of VAT. See Chris Perriam & Tom Whittaker, ‘Introduction: Contemporary Spanish Screen Media and Responses to Crisis and Aftermath’, in Contemporary Spanish Screen Media and Responses to Crisis and Aftermath, ed. Perriam & Whittaker, 2–9 (p. 3); and Triana-Toribio, ‘Spanish Cinema of the 2010s’, 11.
8 Stephanie Dennison, Remapping Brazilian Film Culture in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2019), 17.
9 See Anuario Estadístico de Cine Mexicano 2019/Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema (México D.F.: Secretaría de Cultura/Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, 2019), 24 & 59; available online at <https://www.imcine.gob.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Anuario-2019.pdf> (accessed 17 October 2022). This is not to say, of course, that, prior to 2020, Mexico, or the Mexican audio-visual industry, was devoid of problems. On the twenty-first-century commodification of narco-violence, the encroaching privatization of the sector and the decline of spectators per production (even as net spectatorship was rising), see Misha MacLaird, Aesthetics and Politics in the Mexican Film Industry (London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
10 Kourelou, Liz & Vidal, ‘Crisis and Creativity’, 141. See also Paul Merchant, Geoffrey Maguire & Rachel Randall, ‘Introduction. House or Home? Domestic Spaces in Contemporary Latin American Cinema’, in House or Home? Domestic Spaces in Contemporary Latin American Cinema, ed. Paul Merchant, Geoffrey Maguire & Rachel Randall, Journal of Romance Studies, 18:2 (2018), 143–57.
11 For an overview of social realism in contemporary European arthouse cinema, see Cinema of Crisis: Film and Contemporary Europe, ed. Thomas Austin & Angelos Koutsourakis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U. P., 2020).
12 Crime thrillers are especially prevalent in contemporary Argentina, see Page, Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, 84; and Yannis Tzioumakis, ‘Conning All Over the World: Latin American Variations of an American Film Genre’, Screen, 59:3 (2018), 350–71.
13 Francisco Pellegrino, ‘Cifras sobre el mercado del cine en Venezuela’, Comunicación. Estudios Venezolanos de Comunicación, 157 (2012), 36–42 (p. 40).
14 Carlos Caridad Montero, ‘Desde allá de Lorenzo Vigas, ensayo fílmico sobre el distanciamiento’, Blogacine, 5 September 2016; available at <https://www.blogacine.com/2016/09/05/desde-alla-ensayo-cinematografico-sobre-el-distanciamiento/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
15 Humberto Sánchez Amaya, ‘Una década de cine venezolano: festivales, crisis, documentales y censura’, El Estímulo, 28 December 2019; available at <https://elestimulo.com/climax/una-decada-de-cine-venezolano-festivales-crisis-documentales-y-censura/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
16 See the film’s information page at <https://www.lafaenafilms.com/films/lafortaleza-es> (accessed 17 October 2021).
17 See Luisela Alvaray, ‘Claiming the Past: Venezuelan Historical Films and Public Politics’, Cultural Dynamics, 25:3 (2013), 291–306; Jordi Macarro, ‘Cine venezolano: construcción, invención y adaptación de la “Historia Patria” ’, Fuera de Campo, 2:3 (2018), 54–68; and Patricia Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Memoria histórica y lucha de clases en el nuevo cine venezolano’, Revista Hispánica Moderna, 66:1 (2013), 57–72.
18 All interviews were conducted online between 2020 and 2021. In total, in addition to Juan Lossada, I interviewed directors Gustavo Rondón, Jorge Thielen and Lorenzo Vigas; producers Rodolfo Cova (RH Producciones), Claudia Lepage (TRES), Natalia Machado (Pandilla) and Rodrigo Michelangeli (La Faena); actors Giovanny García and Luis Silva; casting agent Beto Benites; and programmer and curator Maria Delgado (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London). Repeated requests to interview the current directorship of CNAC went unanswered.
19 Ley de la Cinematografía Nacional 2005, Gaceta Oficial 5789, 26 October 2005, 9–15 (p. 9), Título I, §2; available online at <https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2017/09/gaceta-oficial-de-la-republica_763.html> (accessed 18 October 2022).
20 Lisa Shaw, Luis Duno-Gottberg, Joanna Page & Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, ‘National Cinemas (Re)Ignited: Film and the State’, in The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema, ed. Marvin D’Lugo, Ana M. López & Laura Podalksy (London/New York: Routledge, 2018), 44–61 (p. 52).
21 The 1980s represented a golden era for Venezuelan film: an average of ten Venezuelan films were released each year in that decade, compared to an average of five per annum in the 1990s. It was a time when audiences demonstrated marked preferences for film and television made in Venezuela. In 1984 and 1985, five of the ten bestselling films at the box office were Venezuelan. This is remarkable for a country with a relatively small audiovisual industry and one that, historically, has struggled to compete with the popularity of Hollywood productions. See CNAC, Obras cinematográficas nacionales estrenadas desde el año 1976 al año 2005 (unpublished).
22 See Kirk A. Hawkins, ‘Who Mobilizes? Participatory Democracy in Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution’, Latin American Politics and Society, 52:3 (2010), 31–66; Kirk A. Hawkins, Guillermo Rosas & Michael E. Johnson, ‘The Misiones of the Chávez Government’, in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics, and Culture under Chávez, ed. David Smilde & Daniel Hellinger (Durham, NC/London: Duke U. P., 2011), 186–218; and María Pilar García-Guadilla, ‘Urban Land Committees: Co-optation, Autonomy, and Protagonism’, in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy, ed. Smilde & Hellinger, 80–103.
23 See Ryan Brading, ‘From Passive to Radical Revolution in Venezuela’s Populist Project’, Latin American Perspectives, 41:6 (2014), 48–64; Steve Ellner, ‘Hugo Chávez’s First Decade in Office: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings’, Latin American Perspectives, 37:1 (2010), 77–96; and Leslie C. Gates, Electing Chávez: The Business of Anti-Neoliberal Politics in Venezuela (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2010).
24 I subscribe to María Pilar García-Guadilla and Ana Mallén’s definition of polarization as ‘a state of heightened tension between citizens, whose very subjectivity is subsumed under their perceived political affiliation’ (María Pilar García-Guadilla & Ana L. Mallén, Venezuela’s Polarized Politics: The Paradox of Direct Democracy under Chávez [Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2017], 4). Elsewhere, they argue that polarization in Venezuela materialized with Chávez’s rise to power, and that it is ‘associated with the ambiguous constitutional definition of democracy, with the relationship between representative and participatory democracy and the singular, rather than plural, concept of the people as the constitutional authority (the “sovereign”)’ (María Pilar García-Guadilla & Ana Mallén, ‘Polarization, Participatory Demoracy, and Democratic Erosion in Venezuela’s Twenty-First Century Socialism’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 681:1 [2019], 62–77 [p. 64]). To this I would add that polarization is bound up with persistent structural inequalities, the legacies of colonialism and slavery, and the othering of social groups based on intersectional markers including class, race, ethnicity, genealogy, religion and place of residence. See David Smilde, ‘From Partial to Full Conflict Theory: A Neo-Weberian Portrait of the Battle for Venezuela’, in Latin America Since the Left Turn, ed. Tulia G. Falleti & Emilio A. Parrado (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 138–64.
25 See Ellner, ‘Hugo Chávez’s First Decade in Office’, 85–89. Co-operation between leaders in the film industry and the ruling party was consistent with the select alliances that were formed during Chávez’s election campaign between the would-be president and certain factions of the media (Gates, Electing Chávez, 93). For some, this allegiance between the Bolivarian State and the left-leaning media posed a challenge to the logic of profit-driven content that had dominated in the 1990s; for others, it amounted to a quid pro quo of patronage for sympathetic coverage. For discussions of the debates surrounding the politics of the audio-visual industry during the Chávez administration, from the grassroots to governmental institutions, see Andrés Cañizález, Hugo Chávez: la presidencia mediática (Caracas: Alfa, 2016); and Sujatha Fernandes, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela (Durham, NC/London: Duke U. P., 2010); Naomi Schiller, Channeling the State: Community Media and Popular Politics in Venezuela (Durham, NC/London: Duke U. P., 2018).
26 Ley de la Cinematografía Nacional 2005, 9, Título I, §1.
27 Ley de la Cinematografía Nacional 2005, 13, Título VIII, §50.
28 Alvaray, ‘Claiming the Past’, 296.
29 For a nuanced analysis of the development of Villa del Cine, and its interactions with the other state film agencies, see Michelle Leigh Farrell, ‘A Close-Up on National Venezuelan Film Support During the Chávez Years: Between Revolution and Continuity’, The Latin Americanist, 60:3 (2016), 371–89.
30 Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Memoria histórica y lucha de clases en el nuevo cine venezolano’, 58–59.
31 CNAC, Obras cinematográficas nacionales estrenadas desde el año 1976 al año 2005.
32 CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas estrenadas 2010–2014; CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas exhibidas 2015; CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas exhibidas 2016; CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas exhibidas 2017; and CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas exhibidas 2018 (all unpublished).
33 ‘El Centro Nacional Autónomo de Cinematografía celebra 24 años’, Alba ciudad 96.3 FM, 2 August 2018, <https://albaciudad.org/2018/08/el-centro-nacional-autonomo-de-cinematografia-celebra-24-anos/> (accessed 18 October 2022).
34 CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas estrenadas 2010–2014.
35 This is not to say that there were no instances of state-endorsed repression, or suppression, of narratives that challenged or contradicted the Bolivarian ideology during the Chávez administrations. Rather, I would like to suggest that parallels may be drawn with the Franco regime in Spain, where ‘an unreflective and self-satisfied celebration of freedom of expression camouflaged the prolongation—and, in some cases, intensification—of non-democratic practices’ (Duncan Wheeler, Following Franco: Spanish Culture and Politics in Transition [Manchester: Manchester U. P., 2020], 90).
36 On the fragmentation of the cultural sphere, see Manuel Silva-Ferrer, El cuerpo dócil de la cultura: poder, cultura y comunicación en la Venezuela de Chávez (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2014).
37 See Alvaray, ‘Claiming the Past’; Macarro, ‘Cine venezolano’; and Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Memoria histórica y lucha e clases en el nuevo cine venezolano’.
38 CNAC, Obras cinematográficas de largometraje venezolanas estrenadas 2010–2014.
39 Historically, Polar has attempted to shy away from political polemics, instead promoting its brand as one that unifies Venezuelans. Despite this, its director, Lorenzo Mendoza, has proved an immensely popular public figure to the point that, in 2015, rumours abounded as to his potential as a presidential candidate. See Anon., ‘Venezuela: ¿Quién es Lorenzo Mendoza, el magnate en la mira del chavismo?’, BBC Mundo, 22 October 2015; available at <https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/10/151021_venezuela_perfil_lorenzo_mendoza_polar_dp> (accessed 13 August 2021).
40 Its attendees included major figures in Latin-American cinema such as Eliseo Subiela, Jorge Sanjinés, Raymundo Glezier, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. It was the first time that Solanas and Getino’s groundbreaking film, La hora de los hornos, was screened outside Argentina, and led directly to the creation of a dedicated Department of Film at the Universidad de Los Andes in Mérida (Gabriela Bustos, ‘Cuatro razones para reactivar el Comité de Cineastas de América Latina. Entrevista a Edmundo Aray’, Revista Digital del Comité de Cineastas de América Latina, 1:1 [2016], 35–70 [p. 37]; available online at <https://issuu.com/bibliotecadigitaldelcnac-venezuela/docs/revista_digital_del_comit___de_cine> [accessed 18 October 2022]).
41 The resulting agreement was the Convenio de Integración Cinematográfica Iberoamericana 1989; available at <https://www.recam.org/_files/documents/convenio_integr_cine_al.pdf> (accessed 13 August 2021). See also Juan Carlos Lossada, ‘30 años de la Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (FNCL)’, Revista Digital del Comité de Cineastas de América Latina, 1:1 (2016), 73–78; available online at <https://issuu.com/bibliotecadigitaldelcnac-venezuela/docs/revista_digital_del_comit___de_cine> (accessed 18 October 2022).
42 On Ibermedia and its impacts on Latin-American cinema and international co-productions, see Luisela Alvaray, ‘National, Regional, and Global: New Waves of Latin American Cinema’, Cinema Journal, 47:3 (2008), 48–65; and also her ‘Transnational Networks of Financing and Distribution: International Co-Productions’, in The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema, ed. D’Lugo, López & Podalsky, 251–65.
43 Juan Carlos Lossada, ‘Los logros del cine venezolano. Primera parte’, Programa Ibermedia, n.d., <https://www.programaibermedia.com/pt-pt/los-logros-del-cine-venezolano-primera-parte/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
44 The San Sebastián Film Festival, for example, which awarded Mariana Rondón with the Concha de Oro, has its own antagonistic history with the State. See Wheeler, Following Franco, 241.
45 For an overview of developments in the political sphere after the death of Chávez, see Javier Corrales, ‘The Authoritarian Resurgence: Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela’, Journal of Democracy, 26:2 (2015), 37–51; and Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Alexander Hernandez & Monica Marchesi, ‘Social Media and Virality in the 2014 Student Protests in Venezuela: Rethinking Engagement and Dialogue in Times of Imitation’, International Journal of Communication, 9 (2015), 3782–802 (available online at <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/3416> [accessed 18 October 2022]).
46 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Penguin, 2004), 99.
47 Patricia Laya & Alez Vasquez, ‘Maduro Embraces Capitalism and Venezuelan Emigres are Returning’, Bloomberg, 7 February 2020, <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-07/maduro-embraces-capitalism-and-venezuelan-emigres-are-returning> (accessed 9 March 2021).
48 Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Subjetividades en crisis y conflicto social en el cine venezolano contemporáneo’, 411.
49 It was under García’s directorship that El Inca (Ignacio Castillo Cottin, 2016), a film about the late controversial boxer, Edwin Valero, and a close acquaintance of Hugo Chávez, was pulled from the box office by orders of a Supreme Court judge at the petition of Valero’s estate. The order, delivered by a Child Protection tribunal, cited concerns that the well-being of Valero’s children would be negatively affected by his depiction in the film. See ‘Tribunal Supremo de Justicia suspende película “El Inca” en Venezuela’, CNN Español, 16 June 2017, <https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2017/06/16/tribunal-supremo-de-justicia-suspende-proyeccion-de-pelicula-el-inca-en-venezuela/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
50 See Yenderson Parra, ‘El cine nacional vivió uno de sus peores años’, El Nacional, 26 December 2019, <https://www.elnacional.com/entretenimiento/el-cine-nacional-vivio-en-el-ano-2019-uno-de-sus-peores-periodos/> (accessed 13 August 2021); and Anna Marie de la Fuente, ‘With Even Popcorn Scarce, Venezuela Works to Keep Entertainment Business Running’, Variety, 14 July 2017, <https://variety.com/2017/film/features/venezuela-film-industry-struggles-1202496093/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
51 See Parra, ‘El cine nacional vivió uno de sus peores años’.
52 See Florantonia Singer, ‘El cine venezolano resiste en medio de la ruina’, El País, 24 October 2019, <https://elpais.com/cultura/2019/10/23/actualidad/1571799863_301201.html> (accessed 13 August 2021).
53 See ‘Vladimir Sosa Sarabia es el nuevo presidente del CNAC’, El Nacional, 17 September 2020, <https://www.elnacional.com/entretenimiento/vladimir-sosa-sarabia-es-el-nuevo-presidente-del-cnac/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
54 ‘Misión y visión’, CNAC. Centro Nacional Autónomo de Cinematografía, n.d., <http://www.cnac.gob.ve/?page_id=1388> (accessed 13 August 2021).
55 In interview, many filmmakers and actors have described their experiences of shooting on location in Venezuela which regularly involves finding creative solutions to problems that seem terminal, including (but by no means limited to): the navigation of transport during a fourteen-month oil strike; securing a replacement camera where only one other is available in the entire country; working with an indeterminate number of extras who change on a daily basis; being intimidated by members of gangs and the national army; dealing with actors’ egos when certain luxuries (like milk) are unavailable; negotiating three different official prices for the dollar and more on the black market; and finding insurance for work in Venezuela.
56 Rosalind Galt & Karl Schoonover, ‘Introduction: The Impurity of Art Cinema’, in Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, ed. Rosalind Galt & Karl Schoonover (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2010), 3–30 (p. 6).
57 Galt & Schoonover, ‘Introduction: The Impurity of Art Cinema’, 15.
58 Such an interest in tackling the challenges of inequality was not confined to the realm of fictional feature-length filmmaking. In this, CNAC was aligned with the Equipos Comunitarios de Producción Audiovisual Independiente (ECPAI), many of which ran autonomous television channels that were funded by the Chávez government. ‘In conversation with the philosophy of Paolo Freire and media theory first elaborated in the 1970s under the broad aegis of the New Latin American Cinema Movement’, these groups drew on ‘a blend of Marxist and Gramscian ideas’ to embrace ‘the notion that in order to produce socialist men and women, they needed to create television—and culture industries more broadly—capable of generating socialist hearts and minds’ (Schiller, Channeling the State, 91–92). It also worked closely with the EICTV—the Cuban cinema school founded in 1986 by Gabriel García Márquez, Julio García Espinosa, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Fernando Birri—which sought to institutionalize the legacies of New Latin American Cinema. Testament to this allegiance is CNAC’s 2016 resurrection of CCAL, the magazine published by the Comité de Cineastas de América Latina, an organization created at the IV Encuentro de Cineastas Latinoamericanas in Caracas in 1974, that unified Latin-American filmmakers in response to the Pinochet coup, and that, by establishing a strong regional alliance among directors, pledged to raise the flag to ‘ese proyecto bolivariano y martiano, todavía incumplido’ (‘Introducción [1974], reproduced in Revista Digital del Comité de Cineastas de América Latina, 1:1 [2016], 9–10 [p. 10]; <https://issuu.com/bibliotecadigitaldelcnac-venezuela/docs/revista_digital_del_comit___de_cine> [accessed 19 October 2022]). The first rebranded issue of CCAL contained: an article authored by Fidel Castro (originally published in Granma); an open letter that protested the coup against Dilma Rousseff, signed by Wagner Moura and Kleber Mendoca Filho, among others; and recapitulated historic dates in the evolution of New Latin American Cinema.
59 Zuzana Pick, The New Latin American Cinema: A Continental Project (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1993), 4. See also The Social Documentary in Latin America, ed. Julia Burton (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1990).
60 In 2016, Vigas made El vendedor de orquídeas, a documentary about his father, a prominent Venezuelan painter, which follows his journey to recover a lost artwork. Although made in a tone that contrasts with his fictional work, the film suggests an interest in patriarchal heritage. The themes of paternal inheritance, violence, vengeance and masculinity are also prominent in Los elefantes nunca se olvidan.
61 Salient examples include: Cyrano Fernández (Alberto Arvelo, 2007); El rumor de las piedras (Alejandro Bellame Palacios, 2011); Piedra, papel, o tijera (Hernán Jabes, 2012); Hermano, La hora cero and Secuestro Express (Jonathan Jakubowicz, 2005).
62 It is difficult to estimate the current value of these productions given the inflation of Venezuelan currency and the co-existence of various exchange rates at the time of their making. However, the producers estimate that La familia had a budget of approximately US $500,000.
63 In this, they join other contemporary filmmakers who choose horror as a genre to mediate civil conflict, authoritarianism, violence and trauma. See Adam Lowenstein, Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film (New York: Columbia U. P., 2005); and Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández & Claudia Schaefer, The Supernatural Sublime: The Wondrous Ineffability of the Everyday in Films from Mexico and Spain (Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2019). On the characteristics of horror, and its preoccupation with temporality, see The Horror Film, ed., with an intro., by Stephen Prince (New Brunswick: Rutgers U. P., 2004).
64 On urban space in Pelo malo, see Rebecca Jarman, ‘Queering the Barrios: The Politics of Space and Sexuality in Mariana Rondón’s Film, Pelo malo (2013)’, in The Politics of Culture in the Chávez Era, ed. Lisa Blackmore, Rebecca Jarman & Penélope Plaza, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 38, Supplement 1 (2019), 158–80.
65 In choosing his settings, Rondón was forced to adhere to the geopolitics of narco-trafficking: admittance to the roofs of the apartment blocks was disallowed, these being the surveillance sites used to monitor transactions and watch for police, until, eventually, Rondón and the crew earned sufficient trust to gain access in the last few weeks of filming.
66 David Rooney, ‘ “From Afar” (“Desde alla [sic]”): Venice Review’, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 September 2015, <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/afar-desde-alla-venice-review-821716> (accessed 13 August 2021).
67 Silva was cast in La hora cero after appearing in Por un gallo, which had exhausted its funding before completion. Silva had not intended to audition for this film, but, rather, as a means of fulfilling a debt owed to a friend, accompanied him to a casting event near his home in the low-income district of Petare where he was spotted by producers.
68 The ‘arrival’ narrative of rural migrants to the city is one that has a long tradition in Venezuelan cinema. See Rebecca Jarman, ‘Melodrama at the Margins: Poverty, Politics and Profits in “Golden Age” Venezuelan Cinema’, Modern Language Review, 112:3 (2017), 645–65.
69 Valladares-Ruiz, ‘Subjetividades en crisis y conflicto social en el cine venezolano contemporáneo’, 412.
70 Mani Sharpe, ‘Gazing, Settler Cinema and the Algerian War: Slanted Kisses’, Journal of War & Culture Studies, 15:1 (2021), 67–85.
71 Wheeler, Following Franco, 64.
72 Jameson’s polemic statement reads as follows: ‘the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society’ (Fredric Jameson, ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism’, Social Text, 15 [1986], 65–88 [p. 69; original emphasis]). For a robust critique of this view, see Aijaz Ahmad, ‘Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the “National Allegory” ’, Social Text, 17 (1987), 3–25; and, in the context of Latin-American film, Ismail Xavier, Allegories of Underdevelopment: Aesthetics and Politics in Modern Brazilian Cinema (Minneapolis/London: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1997). On a rejection of allegory in Argentine cinema with intellectual pretensions, see Andermann, New Argentine Cinema, xi–xii; Sarah O’Brien, ‘Sticky Matter: The Persistence of Animals As Allegory in Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga and La Mujer sin Cabeza’, Screen, 58:4 (2017), 458–76; and Page, Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, 184–85.
73 Galt & Schoonover, ‘Introduction: The Impurity of Art Cinema’, 10.
74 Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne, with an intro. by George Steiner (London/New York: Verso, 1998 [1st German ed. 1928]), 226.
75 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. J. W. Swain, with an intro. by Robert Nisbet (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976 [1st French ed. 1912]), 10.
76 Christopher Sharrett, ‘The World That Is Known: An Interview with Michael Haneke’, Cinéaste, 28:3 (2003), 28–31 (p. 31).
77 Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Winchester: Zero Books, 2014), 123.
78 Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 43.
79 Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 43.
80 Fernando Coronil, ‘The Future in Question: History and Utopia in Latin America (1989–2010)’, in Business As Usual: The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown, ed. Craig Calhoun & Georgi Derluguian (New York/London: New York U. P., 2011), 231–64 (p. 235). On utopia in Bolivarian Venezuela, see also Matt Wilde, ‘ “To Fill Yourself with Goodness”: Revolutionary Self-Making in Bolivarian Venezuela’, in Possible Worlds: Imagining Utopia in Latin America, ed. Sandra Brunnegger, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 37:2 (2018), 130–43.
81 Coronil, ‘The Future in Question’, 235.
82 For more on patriarchal violence in Venezuelan cinema, see Gustavo Subero, ‘La mirada sexodiverso en el cine venezolano reciente’, BSVS, II:2 (2018), 285–308.
83 Andrés Antillano & Keymer Ávila, ‘¿La mano dura disminuye los homicidios? El caso de Venezuela’, in Reducción de los homicidios y de la violencia armada: una mirada a América Latina, ed. Ignacio Cano & Emiliano Rojido, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, 116 (2017), 77–100. On homicide and violent crime, see Rebecca Hanson et al., ‘Protecting the Right to Life in Venezuela’, in Prisons, Punishment, and Policing in the Americas. Across the Region, Violence Continues to Spiral. What Can Be Done?, ed. Laura Weiss & Alejandro Velasco, NACLA Report on the Americas, 49:3 (2017), 309–14. On extrajudicial executions in Caracas, see AMR 53/3632/2021 ‘Venezuela: Impunity in the Face of Lethal Policy of Social Control’, Amnesty International, 18 February 2021 (available online at <https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr53/3632/2021/en/> [accessed 20 October 2022]); and Adrian Bergmann et al., Monitor del uso de la fuerza letal en América Latina: un estudio comparativo de Brasil, Colombia, El Salvador, México y Venezuela (2019) (Aguascalientes: Monitor Fuerza Letal, 2019).
84 For one example of many, see Fernando Tineo, ‘Crímenes horrendos exponen pérdida de valores en Venezuela’, El Estímulo, 9 February 2021, <https://elestimulo.com/crimenes-horrendos-exponen-perdida-de-valores-en-venezuela/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
85 García-Guadilla & Mallén, Venezuela’s Polarized Politics, 4.
86 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. Osborne, 177–78.
87 For Farrel, this jurisdictional restructuring raises questions about ‘the distinction between film as a cultural art form or a means of propaganda’ (Farrell, ‘A Close-Up on National Venezuelan Film Support During the Chávez Years’, 385).
88 See ‘Luis Alberto Lamata: Serie “Carabobo, caminos de libertad”, atrapa una circunstancia histórica desde el primer momento’, Alba Ciudad 96.3FM, 14 February 2021, <https://albaciudad.org/2021/02/luis-lamata-serie-carabobo-caminos-de-libertad-atrapa-y-cautiva-una-circunstancia-historica-desde-el-primer-momento/> (accessed 13 August 2021).
89 By way of a recent example from Brazil, under Jair Bolsonaro, ANCINE, the national film agency, has been relocated to the Ministry of Citizenship. The move was swiftly followed by a block on all film investments, and the restructuring of the Conselho Superior de Cinema (the Higher Film Council), ‘a consultative body that makes recommendations on film policy, which now controversially includes representatives of Netflix, Google, Facebook and the US Majors’ (Dennison, Remapping Brazilian Film Culture in the Twenty-First Century, 196–97).
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