Venezuela: a revolution on film

NEXT SCREENING - DECEMBER 3TH

2008-11-29T13:15:00.003+01:00

The Hands Off Venezuela Cinema Series “Venezuela: a Revolution on Film” continues with “No Volverán” (Melanie McDonald & Will Roche, 2007), a documentary shot by Hands Off Venezuela supporters during the Venezuelan presidential campaign on December 2006.

The victory of Hugo Chávez in 2006 was the result of a mass mobilisation that turned the presidential campaign into a political and social battle involving millions of Venezuelans. As a result of this momentum, a new phase of the Venezuelan Revolution opened, and a few days after being re-elected Chávez announced the opening of the debate on socialism.

The documentary explains how the landslide victory was possible and investigates the most important political and social issues at stake. The film-makers also met the international delegation of Hands Off Venezuela members who monitored the elections, and travelled with them to several factories including Sanitarios Maracay, a ceramics factory under workers' control.

This film is a key visual document to understand December 2006, a turning
point in the Venezuelan revolutionary process. The documentary makers will attend the screening and the Q&A session that will follow.

WEDENESDAY, DECEMBER 3TH AT 6:45 PM
BOLIVAR HALL - 54 GRAFTON WAY, LONDON
WARREN STREET TUBE STATION.

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

2008-11-21T13:09:00.002+01:00

PEOPLE´S POWER

2008-10-28T20:29:00.007+01:00

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5. FREE SCREENING AT BOLIVAR HALL

54 GRAFTON WAY, LONDON (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)

"People´s power", the third part of the the amazing documentary film The battle of Chile opens and gives name to a new series of screenings within the film season Venezuela: a revolution on film. This programme will focus on the creative and organising power of ordinary people .

This 1979 production analises the role that millions of ordinary people played on the revolutionary process that unfolded in Allende´s Chile.

On the filmaker´s own words "On the sidelines of the large-scale occurrences that narrate the previous films, other original phenomena -- sometimes ephemeral, incomplete -- are also taking place and are picked up by the third part. Many sectors of the population and in particular the social layers in support of Allende organize and start up a series of collective actions: communitarian stores, industrial cordons, farmers' committees, etc., with the intention of neutralizing the chaos and overcoming the crisis. These institutions, in the majority spontaneous, represent a ‘state' inside the State. "

NEXT SCREENING

2008-10-05T11:01:00.006+02:00

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

SEPTEMBER 8th - 6:45 pm

BOLIVAR HALL -54 GRAFTON WAY

(WAREN STRET TUBE STATION)

After the successful screenings of "The Battle of Chile I & II" Venezuela: a revolution on film continues its Revolution and Counter-revolution module with the screening of "The revolution will not be televised"

Donnaha O'brien and Kim Bartley, a couple of independent Irish film-makers, travelled to Venezuela to interview Hugo Chavez, at the time a rising political figure in the continent.

They are exceptional witness of the ongoing revolutionary processs: the rising political awarness of ordinary people, the deepening political divisions in the country and the plotting of the short-lived coup against Chavez in April 2002, as well as the spontaneous reaction of millions of Venezuelans who, in spite of the repression and media black-out, came on the streets to demand the return of their president.

"The revolution will not be televised" is a breathtaking documentary with exclusive footage of what happened inside Miraflores palace in the hours of the coup. It is also an great analysis of the role that the media (national and internatioanl) played on the plotting and execution of the coup. It is both a warning and a comdenation of its power and a celebration of ordinary people's resoluteness.

NEXT SCREENING

2008-09-05T12:32:00.003+02:00

"THE BATTLE OF CHILE II:

THE COUP D'ETAT"

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 - 6:45 BOLIVAR HALL - LONDDON

54 GRAFTON WAY (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)

Between March and September of 1973, the left and right face off in the streets, in the factories, in the courts, in the universities, in parliament, and in the news media. The situation becomes unsustainable. The United States finances the truckers' strike and foments social chaos. Allende tries to reach an agreement with the powers of the Christian Democracy, but fails. The contradictions within the left-wing increase the crisis. The military begins to conspire in Valparaiso.

Following the screening last month of "The insurrection of the bourgeoisie", this second part of the acclaimed documentary film "The battle of Chile" focuses on the last 3 months of Allende's government leading up to the coup and his death in El Palacio de la Moneda.

"The Battle of Chile" by Patricio Guzmán is an overwhelming and admirable documentary of a country thrown into chaos with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy."

Kevin Thomas. Los Angeles Times

"Going further than historical and political analysis, the film is useful for its extraordinary human quality of certain unpublished documents. It's a film that first addresses reflection, but reaches the core of our hearts."

Marcel Martin. Ecran.

NOTES ON "THE BATTLE OF CHILE"

2008-08-22T13:47:00.005+02:00

“The battle of Chile”, a landmark in the history of cinema, was produced with the help of the Cuban Institute of Cinematography (ICAIC) in the 1970’s; After the coup on September 11, 1973, the rolls shot by Guzman and his team had to be clandestinely taken out of Chile. Guzmán himself was arrested in the autumn of 1973 and spent 15 days in the National Stadium. Fearing for his life, he later fled the country and went into exile. Jorge Muller, one of the film’s cameramen, was disappeared by the military dictatorship in 1974.

35 years ago, on September 11, 1973, the Chilean army overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende.

The bombing of the Presidential Palace ended the Chilean experiment to socialism, where “for first time in the history of the revolutionary processes, the path towards social change had been opened via elections, through a pacific via. An event unique in history, the first of its type”, as Fidel Castro remarked in his speech at the National Stadium in Santiago in 1971.

However, this final coup was only a last resort solution to smash a mass revolutionary movement that was threatening the foundations of capitalism and bourgeois society in Chile and beyond.

In 1964 the CIA had already massively intervened in Chile to prevent Allende’s victory in the presidential elections by hugely funding the Christian Democratic Party candidate, Eduadro Frei, and extensively using the media in an unprecedented anti-communist “scarce” campaign that warned about the “dire” consequences of Allende’s victory.

The propaganda operation was fundamentally developed through “assets” in the media, who would “wrote articles or editorials favourable to U.S, interests in the world, suppressed news items harmful to the United States and authored articles critical of Chilean leftists”, as the Church report on the CIA covert operations in Chile concluded.

The CIA effort was successful. Frei won a clear majority, and the campaign continued at a low level during “normal” times and, then cranked up to meet particular aims, as in the congressional elections of 1969 or the presidential campaign of 1970, although this time unsuccessfully.

In 1970, Allende won by a small margin the presidential elections; as no candidate had received a majority
of the popular vote, a joint session of its Congress would have to decide between the first- and second-place finishers on October 24, 1970.

On September 15, President Nixon informed CIA Director Richard Helms that an Allende regime in Chile was not acceptable and instructed the CIA to organise a military coup in Chile to prevent Allende's accession to the Presidency.

The reactionary character of the Chilean military officers was no secret to anyone. Already on July 19, 1964, the Chilean Defense Council met Alessandri, back then president of the republic, to propose a coup in case Allende won the elections schedule later in that year.

In October 22, René Schneider, the Chilean Army Chief of Staff was killed in an kidnapping attempt, which should have been a first step for a coup to prevent Allende’s becoming president.

Schenider was the leader of the constitutionalist officers within the army, who advocated the non intervention of the army in political matters as long as “the president did not step out of his constitutional powers”. Having the coup failed and with the country shocked by Schneider’s death, Allende finally received the vote of the majority of the Congress and became president of Chile.

The Popular Unity programme proposed the nationalisation of Chile’s natural resources, agrarian reform, income redistribution and social expending; and Allende did not waste time to implement it; on December 21, 1970, he proposed a constitutional amendment establishing state control of the large mines industries and authorising expropriation of the foreign companies working on them.

The Chilean bourgeoisie had lost control over the head of the State. The president of the Republic, as would happened with Chávez one generation later, did no respond to the interest of its national oligarchy and American imperialism.

However, the Chilean bourgeoisie, as it happens still now in Venezuela, wielded considerable institutional power, as in the judiciary, and above all, they still had the economic power in their hands.

“Make the economy scream”, Nixon instructed.

The United States immediately cut off all credit lines with Chile and used their position of strength in multinational financial organisation to stifle the Chilean economy.

U.S. bilateral aid, $35 million in 1969, was $1.5 million in 1971. U.S. Export-Import Bank credits, which had totalled $234 million in 1967 and $29 million in 1969, dropped to zero in 1971. Loans from the multilateral Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), in which the U.S. held what amounted to a veto, had totalled $46 million in 1970; they fell to $2 million in 1972. Similarly, the World Bank made no new loans to Chile between 1970 and 1973[i].

Internally, Allende faced strikes in some important copper mines, the main source of revenue and hard currency for the State, encouraged and funded by the US government. Bosses lockouts, walkouts by the professional middle and upper classes, affluent student strikes and acts of terrorism were a means of creating instability and chaos to provoke military intervention, similarly as it happened in Venezuela 30 years later.

"To provoke military action” – said a US embassy in Caracas cable on April 6, 2002 - the plotters may try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month or on-going strikes at the state-owned oil company PDVSA"[ii]; or more graphically, as the Spanish ambassador wrote to the Aznar’s government, “The opposition strategy aiming at overthrowing Chavez through Army pressure is working out. CTV (union confederation) and bosses federation used the strikes at PDVSA to mobilise the people from Caracas, who put the necessary deaths to provoke a military intervention, only force in this country, given the weakness of the opposition political parties, able to an end to the government of president Chávez”[iii].

If Allende faced the opposition of the Chilean bourgeoisie and American imperialism, as Chavez does now, his support amongst the workers, peasants and progressive elements of the middle class grew ever stronger, as it did the workers’ and ordinary people’s capacity to organise and defend their will; neighbourhoods organised committees to secure food distribution and fight speculation; workers occupied factories to secure production and fight economic sabotage; transport of public and supplies was improvised and organised by workers and neighbourhoods organisations in order to defeat bosses strikes on those sectors, etc.

In the March 4, 1973, congressional elections, Allende’s Popular Unity coalition got greatest victory ever, getting 43.7% of the vote. For the ruling class it become clear that playing by their own rules, those of a bourgeois republic, they could never regain control of the State and plans were sped up for a military coup.

On July 26, truck owners throughout Chile went on “strike”. On August 2, owners of taxis and buses go too on “strike”. On August 20, the US government approves the use of $1 million dollars to support opposition political parties and private sector organizations. On August 24, General Pinochet Ugarte is named Army Commander, after General Carlos Prats resignation.
On August 27 Chile's shop owners call another anti-government strike. On August 4, hundred of thousands of workers and ordinary people marched in Santiago to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Allende’s victory, some demanding arms to defend the revolution from the impending coup. That same day, The Confederation of Professional Employees begins an indefinite works stopagge.

Allende, caught up in his dual character of president of a bourgeois republic and leader of a revolutionary mass movement facing the tasks of a socialist revolution, was unable to prevent the final blow on September 11, 1973.

The Chilean bourgeoisie was happy to make away with the “liberty” that the “Marxist” Allende was “threatening” and, rejoicing in the knowledge that their narrow economic interests and privileges were to be secured by the generals’ guns, welcomed a military dictatorship that killed, tortured and disappeared thousands of leftwing workers, peasants, students, teachers, artists and professionals.

The Chilean experience offers invaluable lessons. There should not be any illusions about what the fate of the Venezuelan people would be if the old oligarchy is brought back to power; there should not be any doubt that the only way they can seize power is through violent and unconstitutional means.

[i] Date taken from the Church Report “Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973”. Accessible online at the US State Department website. http://foia.state.gov/Reports/ChurchReport.asp#C.%20Historical%20Background%20to%20Recent%20United%20States-Chilean%20Relations.
[ii] Cable from the US Embassy to Caracas. Accessible online at http://www.venezuelafoia.net/
[iii] Cable from the Spanish ambassador to Caracas, Mr Viturro. Quoted by the Spanish minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr Moratinos Cuayube, at the International Affairs Commission of the Spanish parliament, December 1, 2004. http://www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L8/CONG/DS/CO/CO_153.PDF#page=2

NEXT SCREENING - THE BATTLE OF CHILE I

2008-07-15T13:33:00.009+02:00

On September 11, 1973, the Chilean army led by its recently appointed chief of staff, Augusto Pinochet, overthrew, with the active support of its national bourgeoisie and the government of the United States, the democratic government of Salvador Allende.

The bombing of the Presidential Palace, La Casa de la Moneda, ended the Chilean experiment to socialism, where “for first time in the history of the revolutionary processes, the path towards social change had been opened via elections, through a pacific via. An event unique in history, the first of its type”, as Fidel Castro remarked in his speech at the National Stadium in Santiago during his three week visit to Chile in 1971.

In "The insurrection of the bourgeoisie", the first part of the legendary documentary film "The battle of Chile", Patricio Guzmán captures and analyses with surgeon’s precision the dynamics of the revolutionary process that brought Allende to the presidency, his relationship with the Chilean masses of workers and poor peasants, and the destabilising actions of the Chilean counter-revolutionary forces aided by the helping hand of the US administration in the events that led the failed attempted coup of June 29th.

“I would declare “The battle of Chile” a film of “democratic interest”; its screening should be compulsory in schools”. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Mundo Obrero.

"Great films rarely arrive as unheralded as The Battle of Chile." – Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

"The major political film of our times - a magnificent achievement." – Tom Allen, Village Voice

SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY DEBATE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20 - BOLIVAR HALL (WARREN STREET) - 6:45 PM

VENEZUELA BOLIVARIANA - TODAY 6:45PM

2008-07-09T11:08:00.002+02:00

BOLIVAR HALL, 54 GRAFTON WAY (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)

SCREENING FOLLOWED BY A DEBATE WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM:

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA

BOLIVIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

COLOMBIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

MOVEMENT OF ECUADORIANS IN UK

VENEZUELA BOLIVARIANA - NEXT SCREENING AT BOLIVAR HALL

2008-06-30T11:45:00.009+02:00

Venezuela Bolivariana is a 76-minute documentary by Venezuelan film maker Marcelo Andrade which examines the Venezuelan Revolution as connected to the worldwide movement against capitalist globalization.

Venezuela Bolivariana shows how the Bolivarian revolution, thanks to its incredible grassroots and networking power, transcends the national frontiers of Venezuela and contributes with concrete alternatives in the fight against neoliberal capitalism. Covering the period from the 1989 "Caracazo" to the April 2002 coup against Chavez and beyond, this is a must-see film."

The screening will be followed by a debate with special guests.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, AT 6:45 PM
BOLIVAR HALL, 54 GRAFTON WAY, (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)

SOME NOTES ON "MEMORY OF A PLUNDER" (A SOCIAL GENOCIDE)

2008-06-19T09:40:00.004+02:00

The experience of Grupo Cine Liberación in Argentina was cut shoRt by the military coup of 1976 and the repression that followed, which left more than 30,000 “desaparecidos”.

Solanas, as the rest of Grupo Cine Liberación members, had to flee the country and go into exile. After a short time in Spain he finally settled in France, where he finished the last of group’s projects, “Fierro’s sons” (Los hijos del Fierro).

His next works, The others’ glance (La mirada de los otros, 1980), Tangos, Gardel’s exile (Tangos, el exilio de Gardel, 1985) or South (Sur, 1988) would take a more intimate colouring, closer to the “cinema d’auteur” than to that “third cinema” he had theorised about and made within Cine Liberación.

“Memory of a plunder” (Memoria del saqueo), shot between 2002 and 2003, marked Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. He explains his decision this way:

“The tragedy we lived with the collapse of De la Rúa’s liberal government made me return to my beginnings in cinema, more than forty years ago, when the search for a cinematic and political identity and the resistance against the dictatorship led me to film “The hour of the furnaces”. Circumstances have change to the worse: How is it possible to starve in the “world’s granary”? The country had been devastated by a new type of aggression, silent and systematic, which left more deaths than State terrorism and the Malvinas war (Falklands). In the name of globalisation and free trade, the economic recipes of the international orgaisations ended up in a social genocide and the country’s financial bankrupt. The responsibility of the governments of Menem and De la Rúa does not exempt of theirs own responsibility to the IMF, the World Bank and the countries that dominate them. In their search for extraordinary profits, a neo-racist plan was imposed upon us; a plan that suppressed acquired social rights and condemned millions of people to death for malnutrition, premature aging and curable diseases. These were crimes against humanity in times of peace.”

Visually, “Memory of a plunder” may not be as powerful and challenging as “The hour of the furnaces”, a truly revolutionary piece of cinematographic art in itself. However, the reality that it reveals is no less dramatic and shocking. Solanas’ capacity to analyse and dissect the mechanisms by which the neo-liberal agenda was imposed in Argentina during the nineties and the devastating consequences that this had for the mass of the Argentine people is certainly remarkable.

“Memory of a plunder” was conceived as the first piece a series of four feature documentary films, independent amongst themselves, but united by the topic of Argentina; from the devastation and plunder of the neo-liberal model, to the reconstruction and alternatives of a new project able to reclaim rights which had been taken away and democratise democracy.”

“Memory of a plunder” was followed by “The nobody’s dignity” (La dignidad de los nadie, 2005) and “Latent Argetina” (Argentina latente, 2007). The final film of the tetralogy, “Land in revolt” (Tierra sublevada) is due to be released in 2009.

Asked for his first impression after seeing “Memory of a plunder”, Costa Gravas, the director of Missing, commented: “We feel disturbed, angered, puzzled by what you have make us discover in detail. Our first reflection was about the French and Western press and media. They are constantly attacking Cuba, but we were told nothing or very little about Argentina and the vastness of this plunder.”

Direction: Fernando E. Solanas
Script and voice: Fernando E. Solanas
Research: Acira Argumedo and Fernando E. Solanas
Image: A. Fernández Mouján and Fernando Solanas
Montaje: Juan Carlos Macías, Fernando Solanas, Sebastián Mignona, A. Ponce
Sonido: J. Kuschnir, M. Dickinson, G. Scheuer, E. Vaucher
Música Original: Gerardo Gandini

JUNE 18, NEXT SCREENING AT BOLIVAR HALL

2008-06-04T16:38:00.010+02:00

In December 2001 the Argentine financial system collapsed. The life savings of millions of people evaporated overnight, while billions of dollars had been taken abroad by corporations and millionaires. The effects on the real economy were devastating: mass unemployment, hunger and pauperisation. On the 20th and 21st of December 2001, millions of people took on the streets of Buenos Aires. In fifteen days country had three presidents.

Six months earlier the IMF was presenting Argentina as the example to follow for Latin America. What happened to the promises of modernity, employment and welfare made by politicians, businessmen, economists and their media communicators? “Memory of a plunder” is the chronicle of the neo-liberal roaring 90’s and its consequences in Argentina and, by extension, in the whole of Latin America.

“Memory of a plunder” means Fernando “Pino” Solanas’ return to social documentary. The result is, once again, a remarkable document and a breathtaking film.

6:45 PM FREE ENTRY AT BOLIVAR HALL - 54 GRAFTON WAY (WARREN STREET TUBE) see map

SOME NOTES ON THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES

2008-06-04T16:17:00.006+02:00

The people of a neo-colonial country, like ours, do not own the land they walk on; the dominant culture is not theirs, neither its subversive possibilities. Rebellion is their major cultural expression. The only valid role for an intellectual, or an artist, is to join that rebellion, documenting and furthering it.”

“Our commitment, as men of cinema and individuals, is not with universal culture, neither is it with art, nor with an abstract man; it is and, above all, will be with the liberation of the Argentine and Latin American man.”

Those are the first and last paragraphs of Grupo Cine Liberación’s declaration of principles – An act of liberation.

Setting out from Fanon’s adage – “every spectator is a coward or a traitor” – Getino and Solanas formed Grupo Cine Liberación around the project of “The hour of the furnaces”. They did not think of it simply as a film, but rather as a film-act, which was to be both political and cinematographic.

“The hour of the furnaces” analyses and reflects upon the causes of neo-colonialism and the mechanisms by which the neo-colonial order is imposed upon the peoples of Latin America, and by extension, of the world. . In that sense, “The hour of the furnaces” is a documentary.

But the film, or rather the film-act, is in itself an invaluable document of its time, one of generalised anti-imperialist struggle; from Vietnam to Cuba; from Bolivia to Congo.

No least, “The hour of the furnaces” is also a finest piece of cinematographic art, one where form and content are smelted into a unique language. The silent truths that “The hour of the furnaces” spells out could only be uttered by the images, music and words so admirably put together by Solanas and Getino.

Solana drinks in a rich a varied cinematographic tradition. Einsenstein, Orson Wells and Fernando Birri are all influences recognised by the film-maker.

“The hour of the furnaces” was secretly filmed between 1964 and 1967 and it had to be put together in Italy only a few days before its first public screening in Pesaro.

The film was obviously banned in Argentina, as in some other countries of Latin America, most of them under military dictatorships, and the members of Cine Liberación became social pariahs for the established culture.

In spite of this, in the following years thousands of people would see the film in underground screenings up and down the country. These would often be interrupted by the audience to discuss the issues raised in it, as the film-act encouraged.

After Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973 the ban on “The hour of the furnaces” was lifted. However, first the fascist organised violence of the Triple A (the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance), and later the military coup, would send all Grupo Cine Liberación members into exile.

Director: Fernando Solanas
Production companies: Grupo Cine Liberacion
Producer: Edgardo Pallero
Assistant director: Gerardo Vallejo
Screenplay: Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas

Director of Photography: Juan Carlos de Sanzo
Editors: Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas
Music: Fernando Solanas
Sound: Octavio Getino
Argentina 1968

more information at http://www.pinosolanas.com/

"VENEZUELA: A REVOLUTION ON FILM" LAUNCHED

2008-06-04T11:30:00.006+02:00

In spite of Manchester United and Chelsea playing a historical Champions League final at that very same time, over seventy people gathered on the evening of May 21, at London’s Bolivar Hall for the opening of the film season Venezuela: a revolution on film, which is organised by Hands off Venezuela in association with the Venezuelan embassy in the UK.

The season opened with the screening of the first part of “The hour of the furnaces”– Neo-colonialism and violence -, opera prima of the legendary Grupo Cine Liberación, founded in the sixties by film-makers Fernando “Pino” Solanas y Octavio Getino.

As it was pointed out at its introduction, the season’s aim is to deepen the understanding of the Bolivarian process within a wider historical, social, political, economic, and continental framework through the screening and debate of some cinematographic works of outstanding artistic and documental value, like “The battle of Chile”, “The hour of the furnaces” or “Memories of underdevelopment”, amongst others.

José Baena, film-maker (Memories of a future) and a habitual collaborator in the film magazine Vertigo¡, introduced “The hour of the furnaces” and spoke about the importance of Grupo Cine Liberación’s work.

The screening was followed by a debate with Alan Woods, founding member of the Hands off Venezuela campaign, and author, amongst other works, of Reason in revolt: Marxist philosophy and modern science, The Venezuelan revolution and his latest book Reformism and revolution: Marxism and 21st Century socialism, whose Spanish edition will be presented in June at Madrid’s the Book Fair.

Alan Woods pointed out that Bolivar’s ideas on the unification of Latin America, “not the dream, because dreams have a rather unrealisable character, is not only possible, but necessary. However, this idea can only be materialised in the struggle for socialism. Can anyone think of a united Latin America while the oligarchs – the bankers, industrialists and landowners – keep holding political or economic power?”, he ended up asking.

The season will continue with the screening of “Memory of a plunder” (Argentina, 2003) on the 18th of June. This work marked “Pino” Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. “Memory of a plunder” is an implacable chronicle and analysis of the devastating neo-liberal wave that hit Latin America throughout the nineties.