ABSTRACT
In recent years, the crisis in Venezuela has greatly restricted the development of its film industry (one of the main cultural areas within the Bolivarian project). With their careers paralyzed by funding problems, many emerging Venezuelan filmmakers have been forced into exile or have found alternative ways to create and distribute their work. In a process of increasingly violent social confrontation, some of these creators have chosen to become politically involved and take sides in the protest movements against the government of Nicolás Maduro. Two of them, Carlos Caridad Montero and Hernán Jabés, have explored the short-film format and social media to share their political views with national and international audiences. In this chapter, we will analyze the projects these directors created in 2017 as a result of the protests against Nicolás Maduro’s government. First, we will focus on the documentary series Selfiementary, a multiplatform project of 17 videos by Carlos Caridad Montero. Second, we will examine the work of Hernán Jabes, which comprises “Somos más” and the accompanying pieces “Somos todo / Somos todos,” “Somos Libres,” “¿Qué somos?,” and “¿Dónde está la revolución?” created with his daughter Marcela Jabes. Their short-form documentaries, uploaded on YouTube, are useful to assess how Venezuelan directors have adopted cyber activism at a critical juncture: the transformation of traditional film practices and the migration to social media in search of new spaces to express the messages and points of view opposed to the Maduro regime.
