Chavez: Inside the Coup

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Movie
German title Chavez: A coup from within
Original title Chavez: Inside the Coup
Country of production Ireland
original language English , Spanish
Publishing year 2003
length 72 minutes
Rod
Director Kim Bartley ,
Donnacha O'Briain
production David Power
camera Kim Bartley ,
Donnacha O'Briain
cut Ángel Hernández Zoido
occupation

Chavez: Inside the Coup is a documentary . The film also ran under the alternative title "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". It was first broadcast on RTÉ One on February 18, 2003. In Germany, it was shown under the title "Chavez: A coup from within" on ZDF and ARTE .

content

Venezuela , 2002 - President Hugo Chávez has been in power for four years and promises more democracy , more education , land reform and the redistribution of the profits of the world's fourth largest oil exporter in favor of the poor. But he has strong opponents in the business elite and on April 11, 2002, the coup took place . Chavez is kidnapped and the struggle for power breaks out. An Irish film team (Kim Bartley, Donnacha Ó Briain) from Radio Telefís Éireann , who traveled into the country for a documentary about Venezuela, documented the dramatic events experienced in the following hours and days.

In the documentaries, the perspectives of Chavez supporters (who hope for more prosperity) and Chavez opponents (who fear he will introduce communism) are presented through interviews. Recordings show the protests for and against Chávez on April 11, 2002, which resulted in shots in the crowd, whereby the documentary with the film recordings turns against the representation of private TV stations that the violence originated from Chavez supporters and refers to snipers of unknown origin. On the evening of the day, members of the military leadership demanded Chavez's resignation, otherwise the presidential seat would be bombed. Chavez refuses to resign but goes into captivity to prevent the bombing.

On April 12, 2002, Pedro Carmona, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, was sworn in as the new president and appointed a new government. According to the media, Chávez had previously resigned. Meanwhile, despite media censorship, Chavez supporters declare that Chavez has not actually resigned. On April 13, 2002, protests against the coup broke out in front of the presidential palace. The Presidential Guard decides to turn against the new government and takes control of the building. Members of the Chavez government arrive at the seat of government and use the reinstalled public television network to call on the military to release Chavez. The film ends with footage of Chavez's release and excerpts from his speech after returning to the seat of government.

Originally the documentary was thematically broader (the filmmakers had already arrived seven months before the coup), but the filmmakers decided to focus the documentary on the coup and the role of the media in the coup during production.

Reactions

The film won several awards (including at the Banff World Media Festival ) and ran a. a. on Arte and BBC. It received good to very good ratings from film critics.

Politically, the documentation was very controversial and sometimes hostile. The previous internationally published version of the coup was that it was a spontaneous popular reaction, but the footage contradicts this version. After the international publications, the Venezuelan opposition launched a broad campaign against the film. The opposition organization El Gusano de Luz, represented by the filmmaker Wolfgang Schalk, started a petition against the film. Chavez opponents succeeded in the fall of 2003 in preventing the film from being shown at the Vancouver Festival by threatening Amnesty International employees in Venezuela. The documentary X-ray of a Lie , created by Wolfgang Schalk and Thaelman Urgelles, accuses the makers of the film of making mistakes and, in some cases, of manipulating image material. This was followed by a third documentary entitled Puente Llaguno: Claves de una Masacre , which accuses X-ray of a Lie of being based on false information.

Former Director General of the Irish Film Board, Rod Stoneman, published a case study on the film in 2008. In addition to the background to the production, Stoneman also analyzes the reactions and criticism of "Chavez: Inside the Coup". He comes to the conclusion that the filmmakers made themselves susceptible to criticism and undermined the credibility of the film by using archival recordings outside the chronological order, but he distances himself from the discrediting of the film by the Venezuelan opposition. Smaller errors were clearly exaggerated in the criticism, 15 to 17 of the 18 complaints turned out to be false according to Stoneman's investigation. He concludes that overall the film was produced with decency and honesty.

literature

Rod Stoneman: Chávez: The Revolution will not be Televised. A Case Study of Politics and the Media. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2008.

Sources and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 41 / Issue 04 / November 2009, pp 840-841
  2. ^ Awards for Chavez: Inside the Coup IMDB
  3. ^ "Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The" . Metacritic . CNET Networks.
  4. ^ "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003)" . Rotten tomatoes . IGN Entertainment.
  5. ↑ Michael King: "The Camera Is Mightier Than the ..." . The Austin Chronicle, March 2003
  6. ↑ Chavez film puts staff at risk, says Amnesty , Guardian, November 22, 2003
  7. ^ Alastair McKay: Shot by both sides , Product Magazine