[Imc-cambridge] Fw: [Imc-uk-video] FW: New film "Venezuela from Below”

[Tom Lord]

Eh up

We're down to do a Venezuela-themed screening on the 5th of Sept. and
someone's posted this info below about a potential candidate on the vid
list. - looks quite cool, I'd be interested in getting a copy and splitting
the cost (35 euros = about £25 I think) if people are up for this. Or maybe
we've got enough with the one we were already talking about showing - Zak,
would you be up for watching that sometime to see if it's All Right? Maybe
sometime on Monday afternoon? Might even have chance to make the poster on
Monday as well.

Maybe we could put them both on in quick succession in a Venezuelan
sucker-punch stylee...


cheers,
Tom.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Radical Side" <radical.side at tesco.net>
To: "Uk Indymedia Video Subgroup List" <imc-uk-video at lists.indymedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 9:39 PM
Subject: [Imc-uk-video] FW: New film "Venezuela from Below”


We've just recieved this. I know Tom & DeanO were talking about potential
films about Venezuela last week.

We showed a film, earlier this year by the same film maker about the Tute
Bianche, which was good.

alan

VENEZUELA FROM BELOW

A film by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler
67 min., 2004

In Venezuela, a profound social transformation identified as the
Bolivarian process has been underway since Hugo Chávez’s governmental
takeover in 1998. It concerns a broad process of self organization, from
which has developed a progressive constitution, a labor law, new
educational possibilities, and a number of further reforms for the
impoverished majority of the population of what is potentially a wealthy
state. The government’s politics, which take an open stance against
neo-liberalism, have experienced vehement rejection from Venezuela’s
major private industries and from the U.S., expressed in two attempted
coups and boycotts. Nonetheless, Chávez and his government enjoy the
trust of the majority of the population. The society is heavily
politicized; many people who had never before thought of what they
wanted to change are now a part of a profound transformation taking
place in the country.

In the film "Venezuela from Below,” the true actors in the social
process are able to speak: the grassroots. After an introduction by
philosopher Carlos Lazo, workers from the oil company PDVSA in Puerto La
Cruz report how in 2002/2003 they protected the refinery from breaking
down during the oil sabotage, which was pawned off as a strike, and how
they were able to reinstate oil production. Several farmers from a newly
founded cooperative in Aragua report on their process of self
organization, on the literacy campaign, and how things should continue.
A women’s bank project in Miranda and several loan recipients from
Caracas’ disadvantaged district, 23 de Enero, present their projects.
Indígena community members near the Orinoco river in Bolívar speak about
how their demands and struggles are reflected in the constitution and
what has changed for them. Workers from the occupied National Valve
Company in Los Teques and the paper production company Venepal in
Carabobo – which was occupied by 350 workers after the owners drove it
to bankruptcy, and which now, after a partial agreement, is running
production again – speak about corrupt unions, labor control, and their
struggles. Protagonists in the revolutionary movement Tupamaro, the
cultural foundation Simón Bolívar, the leftist website www.23.net, and
the Bolivarian Circle Abrebrecha from 23 de Enero report on their work
and what has changed for them through the social revolutions.
They are the people of the grassroots and they speak about what they did
and what they are doing, how they feel about the Bolivarian process,
about their expectations and ideas. They see themselves as part of the
process that is underway, but also problematize numerous points. The
search for a social and economic model beyond neo-liberalism is no easy
terrain; there are currently no successful, tested alternatives. The
protagonists in the Bolivarian process have, however, set upon a path
from which there is no return.


Concept, interviews, film editing, production: Dario Azzellini & Oliver
Ressler
Camera: Volkmar Geiblinger
Image editing and titles: Markus Koessl
Interviewees: Titina Azuaje, Gustavo Borges, Stalin Pérez Borges, Juan
Brizuela, Bertha de Castillo, José Ramón Castillo, Eduardo Daza, Arlenis
Espinal, Freddy Farias, Juán Fermín, José Flores, Randy García, Círe y
Guarán, Sandra Heredia de Goncalves, Juana Catalina Guzman, María Elisa
Irazabal de Píneda, Natalí Jaimes, Carlos Lazo, Henry Mariño, Maritza
Marquez, Esther de Mena, Esteban Michelena, Argelia Naguanagua de Ramos,
Emma Ortega, Edgar Peña, Judith Sánchez, José Mercedes Sifontes, Alfonso
Tovar, Antolino Vasquez, Eduardo Yaguaracuto
Grants: Kunstsektion des BKA, Stiftung Umverteilen

The film is available in Spanish, with English or with German subtitles.

Images + information: www.ressler.at