Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

FILM-VENEZUELA: Bringing Non-Hollywood Fare to City Squares

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Nov 7 2006 (IPS) - Neighbourhood cinemas have closed down by the dozen and movie-goers in the Venezuelan capital have little choice but to take in the Hollywood blockbusters offered by the multiplex theatres operated by a handful of large companies in the city’s shopping malls. But that is about to change.

“Popular mobile cinema”, a new programme launched this month by the Caracas city government and the Circuito Gran Cine will offer alternative and independent films on big screens set up in city squares in seven low-income neighbourhoods in the capital.

“Our idea is to bring cultural, non-commercial films to low-income communities, to offer quality alternative films, the kind you don’t see in shopping centres or theatres – the kind we show in our annual film festivals,” Bernardo Rotundo, president of the Circuito Gran Cine, a local association dedicated to promoting the showing of quality Venezuelan and foreign films, told IPS.

His association organises Latin American and European film festivals, as well as theme-based series of films. But these events usually take place in select theatres that tend to draw small audiences made up largely of well-educated, middle-class viewers.

The “popular mobile cinema” initiative, on the other hand, “seeks to awaken interest among a public that usually watches Hollywood movies, the kind of films that are shown in multiplex theatres in shopping centres, and to offer them films that have gained recognition in national and international festivals,” said Rotundo.

The films will be shown in busy city squares in seven poor neighbourhoods: Catia, El Valle and El Cementerio on the west side of Caracas, La Pastora and La Candelaria in the north-central part of the city, and El Hatillo and Petare in the east.

The films will be screened daily after nightfall, starting at 7:00 PM. The different films selected will be rotated between the seven plazas that have been chosen.

The initial series includes “El milagro de Candeal” (The Miracle of Candeal), by Spanish director Fernando Trueba, “Cinema Paradiso” by Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, and “Il Postino” by British director Michael Radford.

Other films to be shown are the French wildlife classic La Marche de l’empereur (March of the Penguins), the Spanish films “Sodomía” and “Te doy mis ojos” (Take My Eyes), and the low-budget independent U.S. production Thirteen.

The films will be shown on six-by-four metre screens, accompanied by mobile sound systems. The audience will sit on folding chairs. Whenever there is interest, the screenings will be followed up by discussions and chats.

“We want to trigger new impressions and reflections about films, culture and participation in these public spaces where noise, street hawking and even crime and violence generally reign,” said Rotundo.

The programme is aimed not only at raising awareness on issues of key importance in a city like Caracas, such as violence or drug consumption, but is also geared simply to providing entertainment for families – and the entire neighbourhood.

“By showing people a new way to enjoy a genre of films that they are not really familiar with, we provide a counterweight to the commercialised movie-going concentrated in shopping malls,” said Rotundo.

Veteran film critic Rodolfo Izaguirre told IPS that dozens of movie theatres in the city centre and in poor neighbourhoods have closed down, while neighbourhood cinemas have not even been built in modern middle- and upper-class developments that have cropped up.

“I still remember that in popular theatres in Santa Rosalía or La Pastora, old men would sometimes even go in their pajamas – that’s how at home people felt in their neighbourhood theatres,” said Izaguirre.

“But all that has disappeared,” he added. “The streets and theatres in central Caracas or in districts on the outskirts of the city, where we became movie-lovers years ago, are now abandoned, run-down places.”

While Venezuelans today go to the movies in multiplex theatre chains owned by two or three big companies, the old cinemas are collapsing or being converted into warehouses, factories or cultural centres. Many have also been turned into churches by evangelical denominations like the Universal Church from Brazil.

The “popular mobile cinema” initiative, which will cost 250,000 dollars provided by the city government, a local bank, a supermarket chain and the Swiss Embassy, could expand to towns and cities around Venezuela in the future, said Rotundo.

 
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