The Irish-made documentary about the failed coup against Hugo Chavez has won over festivals worldwide; the reaction in Venezuela is more complex, reports Michael McCaughan
The revolution will be televised (but not broadcast). When Alicia Azcanio saw the opening images of Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Brien's documentary about the failed 2002 coup against the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, (Chavez: Inside the Coup), she ordered her son, Francisco, to switch it off.
"More Chavista rubbish," she said.
Azcanio, an elderly woman living on the outskirts of Caracas, is a fervent opponent of Chavez who only tunes into the anti-government press, which played a key role in orchestrating the coup attempt in April, 2002.
By the end of the documentary, however, she had changed her mind.
"They lied to us," she said. "They never told us what really happened during the coup."
The gripping documentary traces the shifting fortunes of President Chavez and has won global critical acclaim and a raft of prestigious prizes, yet most Venezuelans will never get an opportunity to see it. "Venezuelans are clinging on to their prejudices for dear life," said Alberto Garrido, a prominent journalist. Azcanio viewed the documentary only because her activist son made a copy of the video and sat her down to watch it at home.
The Venezuelan media is controlled by a handful of wealthy businesspeople led by Gustavo Cisneros, a Cuban- American who has openly declared war on the Chavez government. In April 2002, dissident army coup plotters prepared their taped message to the nation in the home of a television commentator while TV stations urged citizens to march on the presidential palace and "restore freedom" to the country.
The catalyst that led to the brief removal of President Chavez was a series of shocking images, in which government supporters appeared to open fire on unarmed opposition protesters from a bridge close to the presidential palace. The images travelled around the world in a matter of minutes, legitimising the overthrow of Chavez.
The Irish documentary crew, which was working on a profile of the Venezuelan leader, kept the cameras rolling inside the presidential palace, following the whirlwind events that saw a new government installed and deposed in less than 48 hours.
In the weeks following the failed coup, Bartley and O'Brien complemented their own footage with amateur video material shot during the heady hours of April 11th.
The result is a gripping, roller-coaster ride through Venezuela's turbulent political times, revealing the popularity of Chavez's peaceful, democratic revolution and the middle-class resistance which culminated in the events of April 11th, 2002.
It also demonstrated that the images used to justify the coup were manipulated to give the mistaken impression that Chavez supporters fired on peaceful protesters. When Bartley and O'Brien trawled through raw footage, taken by a range of alternative media sources, it quickly became apparent that the gunmen on the bridge were exchanging fire with members of the Metropolitan Police posted underneath. Both groups were disoriented by a number of snipers using silencers, who fired on pro- and anti-government activists from the rooftops of nearby buildings.
The massive anti-government march had stopped several blocks away, seeking a way through to the presidential palace.
In the aftermath of the coup attempt, dozens of relatives and friends of the victims of violence came forward to claim their lost loved ones, at which point it became clear that most of the dead were Chavez supporters.
The Irish documentary was broadcast in Venezuela on the coup anniversary in April this year by state-controlled Channel 8, boasting the title The Revolution will not be Televised. (This is the name of the longer, 74-minute version.)
"People were outraged, indignant, surprised and overwhelmed," said political analyst Augusto Montiel. "It's by far the most important document of what happened here at that time."
The documentary has been repeated several times on Channel 8, while community activists have made copies and screened it in libraries and in working-class neighbourhoods around the city.
The documentary came as a great relief to President Chavez's press department, which has proved dismally inept at combating the media lockout inflicted by the opposition.
Venezuela's environment minister, Ana Elisa Osorio, whose family was divided over the Chavez administration, smiled broadly as she recalled the documentary. "My family watched it to see what happened to me during the coup," Osorio told The Irish Times last week. "And they had to admit that the situation was quite different to what they had been led to believe."
However, any hopes that the documentary might serve to reconcile Venezuela's deeply divided society have been dashed by subsequent events, as government and opposition followers appear more uncompromising than ever, each side determined to annihilate the other, leaving no room for dialogue.
The private media has made no effort to correct its anti-government bias and continues to wage war against the Chavez administration. At the time of the coup, private television channels directed journalists to suppress all signs of pro-government activity on the streets, obliging several journalists to resign their posts in protest. The government is in the process of approving a "law of social responsibility" which would impose severe sanctions on press coverage deemed an incitement to hatred or aimed at overthrowing the government.
One of the biggest fans of the documentary is Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who remains Chavez's closest ally. Chavez has made frequent trips to the Caribbean island, where Castro treats him like a younger brother, sometimes scolding him for doing too much too soon, but always concerned about his welfare.
Castro ordered 10,000 copies of the video to be made, distributing hundreds to diplomatic posts around the world and sending the remaining copies to Venezuela, where they are handed out to visiting journalists.
Meanwhile, Venezuela's private television stations will not air the video and have ignored its success at film festivals worldwide, from the Banff TV Rockie Awards 2003 and the Golden Link Award, for the shorter, television version, to the Needle Award at the Seattle Film Festival and Le Prix George du Beau Regard Internationale at Marseilles, for the longer documentary.
Venezuela is probably the most open country in the world in terms of press behaviour, with 400 radio stations, 100 newspapers and eight TV stations turning out a steady diet of vicious anti-government propaganda without the slightest effort to corroborate sources or seek an official response.
Prime-time television news begins along the following lines each evening: "The government once more tried to treat us Venezuelans as fools today when a spokesman announced . . ."
When a top government official turned up for a "face the people" programme on television last week, the scene resembled something from the Jerry Springer show.
"I want to look into your eyes," wailed one irate caller, as the studio camera obediently zoomed in for a close-up. "You'll pay for what you are doing, you bastard," she said, criticising the government's literacy campaign, led by a group of Cuban instructors.
Meanwhile Chavez relies on state- controlled Channel 8, which is watched solely by his supporters and churns out a dull diet of pro-government publicity spots.
"The Venezuelans I know would have done everything in their power not to see the documentary," said Gerry O'Sullivan, an Irish-born professor of journalism at Venezuela's conservative Catholic University. "The documentary was excellent," he says, "but the Chavez of that moment has since adopted a more aggressive attitude and hasn't got the patience or the ability to govern the country."
After a fruitless week searching for opposition activists who might have seen the documentary, this reporter took the initiative and invited a group of anti-Chavistas, of different ages and income levels, to watch the documentary.
The group grew impatient at the images of Chavez blessing community projects and hugging the people and dismissed all signs of popular support captured on screen. At least half the documentary was inaudible due to the running commentary of the hostile viewers.
By the end of the programme the general consensus was that the documentary was "excellent" and reasonably objective, but that Chavez remained a dictator leading the country to a totalitarian grave.
The audience included a sacked oil worker, an unemployed nurse and a businessman gone bust, all suffering economically under this government. The final word belonged to Mireya Theis, a lower middle-class woman who watches only the anti-Chavez television channels. "I think Chavez organised the coup himself" she said, irritated by the irrefutable images which had just invaded her home.