In conversation with Mariana Rondón and Marité Ugas on Venezuela’s political unrest
Mariana Rondón and Marité Ugas directorial feature It Would Be Night in Caracas had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film, based on a book of the same name, takes place in Venezuela during a time of massive political unrest following the heightened tensions between the government and its political opponents. The film follows Adelaida (played by Natalia Reyes) as she struggles with the loss of her mother, only to find her home has been seized by a corrupt militia. As she takes refuge in a nearby apartment, she needs to survive and escape the home she’s known since her childhood.
Since 1999, Venezuela has been under the political stewardship of “Bolivarianism,” named after Simón Bolívar, father of independence for Venezuela and Colombia. The term, introduced into the political landscape by former President Hugo Chávez and championed by current president Nicolás Maduro, is a left-wing populist political platform with core tenets of anti-imperialism and economic self-sufficiency for the people of Latin America.
Through strategies like constitutional reform and, later into his first term, ruling by decree, Chávez started implementing strategies like mixed public-private control of the petroleum interests in Venezuela and using these funds to carry out the Bolivarian vision. However, Chávez’s alignment with controversial international political figures of the time, like Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, his increasing efforts to model Venezuela into a state similar to Cuba (including the usage of Cuban text books that were superficially adapted to Venezuela) and the passing of his “49 Laws,” led to a first wave of protests against his government.
After a failed coup in 2002, Chávez managed to maintain power but would proceed to use “rule by decree”, allowing him to bypass the constitutionally established channels of government, before entirely eliminating term limits for president in 2007. Crime statistics rose in Venezuela, and even following Chávez’s death in his fourth term as president in 2012, the Bolivarian agenda continued as he was succeeded by then vice-president and current president Nicolás Maduro. Maduro relied more heavily on the military to support his rule, which saw the Venezuelan economy plummet and crime rise even further. Protests broke out across the country throughout the 2010s, which were met with violent repression from the Maduro government.
The situation became so dire that, by 2019, 94% of Venezuelans lived below the poverty line. Many chose to leave Venezuela to escape the poverty, violence and precarious living conditions that persist to this day.
Antler River Media’s Emmanuel Akanbi (EA) spoke with directors Mariana Rondón (MR) and Marité Ugas (MU) to discuss their film and the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
Spanish translations for this interview were done by Carlos Aguirre Pozas.
EA: Thank you for meeting me here. I think you made a beautiful movie and I’m very, very grateful that I got to watch it. I think it sheds an interesting light on migration and why people need to leave places, especially in Latin America where we see a lot of migration for many different reasons: a lot of political unrest and people needing to leave for their safety and for comfort. So I was wondering if you could talk about how that hasn’t really changed since 2017, which was the period of time you were covering.
MU: Not only are migration problems in Latin America; in the United States they are also feeling more palpable and are repeating daily on the news, what we have been seeing for a while in Latin America.
MR: We have kind of a joke that we say, “We are coming from the future”.
MU: And that is what is happening. Already living in Venezuela, in a totalitarian country where the schema has been maintained for over 10 years, things haven’t changed. The big protests happened in 2017. From that moment onward, there was a huge slaughter of students, with over 100 dead kids. We don’t see so many protests, because no one really wants to go out and become cannon fodder any longer. But, the situations of discontent and oppression in that regime have not changed.
MR: Even last year, there were elections and the government refused to recognize that they’d lost and in that moment, he [the Maduro government] decreed it would put 2000 persons in jail and put anyone in jail, just to demonstrate they had power and persecution has been terrible. There’s even a large amount of minors incarcerated.
EA: It’s definitely alarming a lot of people don’t know what’s happening in Venezuela or in any other places around the world. Do you have hope change can come with the protests that will still be going?
MR: Look, there were very strong protests. When I talk of “strong protests”, I’m talking about 6, 7, 8 months of daily protests. There were [protests] in 2014, in 2017 and in 2019. After those years, there were a lot of dead, and then over 8 million people have left Venezuela. The resistance and possibilities consist of immediate survival. I don’t think that [protests] can happen.
EA: The perspectives Westerners, or people in the West, have of migrants are very uninformed in how serious it is and how grand it is to pack up and leave for another country. It’s very difficult for Adelaida in the film, she needs to undergo a very strenuous process of impersonating someone else to be safe. Can we touch on what you believe is the error in how people perceive migrants right now?
MU: We’re used to memory being very fragile and forgetfulness is very frequent. What we want to do with this movie is to highlight and highlight, even with archival footage, that this happened and that it happened very, very recently. And that’s the idea, to sensitize you with this topic because, indeed, these are ruinous and petty times.
MR: Besides, in that sense, the movie is universal, because what is being lived around the world with migration is brutal; what is happening in Europe with migrants, what is happening in the United States with migrants and to be able to tell what happens to someone who is forced to migrate, I think that was very pertinent to us.
EA: I think one line Adelaida’s fiancé says to her, before he leaves, is “surviving means stepping on others to do it.” I think it’s very pertinent to just how much people need to do to survive in Venezuela and around the world when things are under authoritarianism. It’s not a full spotlight on the story, could you touch on why you kept that background of Adelaida’s fiancé in the film and what it stands for?
MR: It is very strong, when you’re in a moment where you have to survive; because, in some way, you’re a victim, but you can quickly become a perpetrator yourself. The majority of people who left Venezuela have done so by walking across Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and all the way to Chile; that is half a continent walking. They must have stepped over a lot of people to get to the end.
EA: I just think it’s such a powerful story of really what it is to try and survive against the odds and the difficulty of living through it. I’m really, really grateful for the film you were able to make. The last thing I wanted to ask you is what it was like to look through the archival footage and picking what to use and what sort of hope do you have with the attention the movie will bring?
MU: There’s even archival footage that is much stronger, a higher level of piercing than what we see in the movie. But, we decided to hold back and not take it to the furthest degree of rawness. What we put in is more than sufficient to give the verisimilitude that must hold this story. And, like I told you before, what we’re most interested in is putting this conversation on the table, to not let it be forgotten and perhaps with that, having the hope that things will change in some way soon. And that even regimes that thought themselves safe within a democracy that, on appearances, works correctly; to know that authoritarianism appears, and sometimes very swiftly, from any corner. Autocracies are very dangerous.
MU: See yourselves reflected.
MR: Any right can disappear very quickly.
EA: Thank you so much. ¡Gracias, gracias!
Transcripción Español de Entrevista a Mariana Rondón (MR) y Marité Ugas (MU), directoras de la película “Aún Es Noche en Caracas”, por Emmanuel Akanbe (EA) para Antler River Media Co-Op
EA: Muchas gracias por reunirse conmigo aquí. Creo que han hecho una hermosa película, y estoy muy, muy agradecido de haber podido verla, por lo cual gracias de nueva cuenta. Creo que muestra una luz interesante en la migración y por qué la gente se ve en la necesidad de dejar lugares, especialmente en América Latina donde vemos mucha migración por varias razones: por una gran cantidad de inestabilidad política y gente necesitando irse por su seguridad y confort. Es por esto que me preguntaba si podrían hablar acerca de cómo las cosas no han cambiado en realidad desde 2017, el cuál es el período de tiempo que estaban cubriendo.
MU: No solamente los problemas de migración están en América Latina, en Estados Unidos también se sienten mucho más palpables y están repitiendo diariamente en las noticias lo que nosotros venimos viendo desde hace rato en América Latina.
MR: [En inglés] Tenemos una especie de broma que decimos: “Nosotros venimos del futuro”.
MU: Y eso es lo que pasa, ya viviendo en Venezuela, en un país totalitario donde el esquema se mantiene desde hace más de 10 años, las cosas no han cambiado. Las grandes manifestaciones sucedieron en 2017. A partir de ese momento, hubo una tremenda matanza a estudiantes, hubo más de 100 chicos muertos. Ya no vemos tantas manifestaciones, porque ya nadie quiere salir a ser carne de cañón. Pero, las situaciones de descontento y opresión en ese régimen no han cambiado.
MR: Incluso el año pasado, hubo unas elecciones y el gobierno no reconoció que perdieron; y a partir de ese momento, él decretó que iba a poner 2000 personas presas y puso a cualquiera preso, solo para demostrar que tenían un poder y la persecución ha sido terrible. Incluso, hay muchos menores de edad presos.
EA: Es definitivamente alarmante que mucha gente no sabe lo que está pasando en Venezuela o en otros lugares alrededor del mundo. ¿Tienen ustedes esperanza que puede haber cambio con las protestas que aún están ocurriendo?
MR: Mira, hubo manifestaciones muy fuertes. Cuando hablo de manifestaciones muy fuertes, es que han sido 6, 7, 8 meses de manifestaciones diarias. Lo hubo en el 2014, en el 2017 y en el 2019. Ya después de esos años, la gente… Primero que hubo muchos muertos, después se han ido 8 millones de personas de Venezuela. La resistencia y posibilidades consisten en la supervivencia inmediata. No creo mucho que pueda pasar eso.
EA: Pienso que las perspectivas la gente occidental, que la gente en el Occidente, tiene de los migrantes son muy poco informadas en cuanto a qué tan serio es y qué tan grande es empacar e irse a otro país. A través de Adelaida…. Es muy difícil para ella; ella tiene que llevar a cabo un proceso bastante agotador de hacerse pasar por otra persona para estar a salvo. ¿Podemos tocar en lo que piensas es el error en cómo la gente percibe a los migrantes ahora?
MU: Estamos acostumbrados a que la memoria es muy frágil y el olvido es muy frecuente. Lo que nosotros queremos hacer con esta película es subrayar y subrayar, inclusive con imágenes de archivo, que esto sucedió y que sucedió hace muy, muy poquito. Y esa es la idea, sensibilizarlos con este tema porque, efectivamente, son tiempos un poco ruines y mezquinos.
MR: Además en ese sentido, la película es universal, porque lo que se esta viviendo en le mundo entero con la migración es brutal: lo que esta pasando en Europa con los migrantes, lo que esta pasando en Estados Unidos con los migrantes y poder contar lo que pasa a alguien que se ve obligado a migrar, eso se nos hace súper pertinente.
EA: Pienso que una línea que el prometido de Adelaida le dice, antes de irse, es “sobrevivir significa pisotear a otros para hacerlo”. Pienso que es muy pertinente de cuánto tiene que hacer la gente para sobrevivir en Venezuela y alrededor del mundo cuando las cosas están bajo el autoritarismo. No es una escena central en la historia pero, ¿quería saber si podríamos tocar en el trasfondo del prometido de Adelaida en la película y lo que representa?
MR: Es muy fuerte cuando estás en un momento de tener que sobrevivir, porque de alguna manera eres victima pero también puedes convertirte rápidamente en victimario. La mayoría de la gente que salió de Venezuela se ha ido caminando por Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú hasta Chile; esto es la mitad de un continente caminando. Deben de haber pasado por encima de muchos para llegar hasta el final.
EA: Simplemente pienso que es una historia tan poderosa de lo que realmente es tratar de sobrevivir contra las posibilidades y la dificultad de vivirlo. Estoy verdaderamente agradecido por la película que pudieron hacer. La última cosa que quería preguntar es: ¿cómo fue para ustedes ver a través de las imágenes de archivo y elegir qué usar y qué es lo que esperan con la atención la película traerá?
MU: Inclusive hay archivos mucho más fuertes, a nivel de desgarro que lo que vemos en la película. Pero, decidimos contenernos un poco y no llevarlo hasta el extremo de crudeza. Con lo que pusimos es bastante suficiente para darle el verosímil que debe de sostener esta historia. Y, como te decía antes, lo que más nos interesa es poner esta discusión sobre el tapete, no dejar que se olvide y tal vez con eso, tener la esperanza de que cambie de alguna manera pronto. Y que, inclusive, regímenes que creían estar a salvo dentro de una democracia que, en apariencia funcionara correctamente, saber que el autoritarismo aparece y a veces muy rápidamente desde cualquier rincón. Las autocracias son muy peligrosas.
MU: Véanse reflejados
MR: Todo derecho puede desaparecer muy rápidamente
EA: Muchísimas gracias. [En español] ¡Gracias, gracias!
