Welcome to another dimension of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's socialist "revolution" and war against the West. The man who recently announced plans to nationalize key industries and who has become the world's most outspoken scold of President Bush also wants to take on Walt Disney and Snoop Dogg.
He is trying to promote a national identity and more independence from "imperialist" America by forcing radio stations to play indigenous music, granting prominent space to amateur Venezuelan artists in museums, and setting up a state-run movie studio. It may be one of the world's bolder – and most controversial – experiments in trying to engineer a culture.
To supporters, the move may well give artists who otherwise might be swept aside by the forces of capitalism and commercialism an opportunity to develop their craft – and, by extension, enhance the artistic diversity of a nation.
But critics, including many artists themselves, see the move as a political gambit – one that, in trying to promote a national cultural identity, threatens the very integrity of the culture itself.
"They [Chávez administration officials] have no respect for culture in Venezuela," says Beatriz Sogbe, an art historian here. "You can't hang culture within the law."
In its attempt to counter what it sees as the hegemony of Hollywood, the Chávez administration has created "Cinema Village." It has put $42 million into the project, through the Ministry of Culture, with the intent of producing 19 feature-length films a year, in addition to documentaries and television series. The project also calls for building 24 screening rooms throughout the country in places without movie theaters. Six have been constructed so far.
The idea is to encourage films that incorporate themes of social empowerment, Latin history, or Venezuelan values. Participants insist it is not a form of political propaganda, but an incubator for budding auteurs and an alternative to American movies and their "stereotypes."
"Hollywood creates movies to sell tickets, and in doing so, we are taught that all Arabs are terrorists, that Africa is poor because it wants to be, that all women in Latin America are prostitutes," says Lorena Almarza, Cinema Village's president, a hip 30-something wearing a red "Chávez" bracelet.
