Hugo Chavez was a colourful, unpredictable folk hero who was beloved by his nation’s working class. He was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, and proved to be a tough, quixotic opponent to the power structure that wanted to depose him. When he was forcibly removed from office on 11 April 2002, two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace.
Trade union leader Manuel Taborda, a pioneer of workers' organisations in the oil industry, recounts his experiences and those of his colleagues from 1920 to 1936, with an emphasis on the struggles against foreign companies and the government.
In 1969, the Renovación Universitaria movement and the subsequent raid on the Central University of Venezuela by the government of Rafael Caldera, triggered a strong wave of protest in the Institutes of Higher Education in Venezuela. This documentary collects part of the events that took place in the city of Mérida, Mérida State, where the University of the Andes is located.
Cruz Quinal, "the mandolin king," lives near Cumana in a mountain valley surrounded by sugarcane fields. Perpetuating 16th century Spanish traditions of guitar-making, Cruz fashions such musical instruments as cuatros, marimba, escarpandola, and his own creation, a mandolin with two fretboards. He is an accomplished musician as well. In this moving portrait, Cruz compares himself to a decaying colonial church across the street: revered yet neglected, the village altar stands, paint peeling, under the open sky.
Mayami Nuestro goes beyond the slogan "tá barato, dame dos" (“it’s cheap, give me two”) to force a rethinking of Venezuela’s relationship with oil and national identity. Produced at the height of the oil boom, this 34-minute documentary examines Venezuelan lifestyles in the 1970s and early 1980s, questioning the consumerist fantasies fueled by petro-wealth. Through interviews with merchants, bankers, U.S. academics, and the testimonies of Venezuelans themselves, the film maps the era’s version of the “American Dream” as lived—and projected—abroad. Winner of national and international awards and directed by Carlos Oteyza, Mayami nuestro offers a sharp, historically grounded critique and an open invitation for new generations to reflect on the legacy of oil and its cultural consequences.
Short that tells the history of Campoma, a small Venezuelan town founded by black slaves.
Imagen de Caracas was an experimental film spectacle, directed by Jacobo Borges and Mario Robles in 1968 for the 400 anniversary of the foundation of Caracas. It needed more than 48768 meters of film and 5000 actors.
Hugo Chávez: Itinéraire d'un révolutionnaire
Documentary about the life of Luis Mariano Rivera.
The struggle of two men, Osuna and Funes, hungry for power and wealth in a small town in Venezuela, during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez.
Documentary about the life of Simón Bolívar, directed by Antonio Bacé.
Intertwined stories of people fighting for love, survival and the truth during quarantine.
On May 20, 2017, Jérôme Laronze, a 37-year-old cattle farmer, was shot dead by gendarmes at the end of a nine-day run. In conflict with government services, the organic farmer, spokesman for the Confédération paysanne de Saône-et-Loire, had evaded yet another health inspection and, during his escape, had tried to alert people to the malaise in his profession. The news of his death came as a bombshell in a farming world already plunged into mourning by a wave of suicides. How did it come to this? While their incomes depend almost exclusively on European subsidies - which favor large farms - farmers must, in return, comply with very strict standards.
Obsessively referring to the traumas and wounds that the Spanish civil war (1936-39) and Franco's dictatorship (1939-75) caused in their day no longer serves to explain the impassable abyss of incomprehension and hatred that the abject policies and radical positions adopted by both the right and the left in recent decades have opened up before the citizens of a country that is barely known beyond hackneyed cultural clichés.
Natural disasters are now a reality even in Central Europe, which was previously thought to be safe - as the Ahr floods in 2021 made terrifyingly clear. One year later, the film reconstructs the events of July 14-15 in detail based on the stories of the people who experienced terrible things on the ground that night.
By invading this "state fiction" that is, according to him, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin takes up the motto of the tsars: "sovereign of all Russia, the great, the small and the white". The first would have Moscow as its capital, the second, kyiv, and the last, Minsk.
Aides à domicile, les temps modestes
The Last Straw is a film documenting the very last live poetry reading given by Charles Bukowski at The Sweetwater, a music club in Redondo Beach, California on March 31, 1980
Homer's Odyssey meets King of Kong as two über geeks try to collect all 678 officially licensed Nintendo Entertainment System game cartridges in 30 days, WITHOUT the aid of online purchasing.
Is the story of a generation of thieves who achieved their greatest victories in the sixties; their distinctive code of ethics, the various categories of delinquents inhabiting the citys streets, their alliances with high ranking police officials that allowed them to operate, the betrayals that followed, and the price they ended up paying.