Mariano Picón Salas, a leading intellectual of modern Venezuela, has been quoted as saying that the 20th century actually began in our country with a thirty-five year delay. Back then, he said it in light of the death of dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, whose passing was officially declared on December 17, 1935—also the deathday of national liberator Simón Bolívar.
What came after was an important moment in Venezuela’s contemporary history: a slow but steady path to take the country into modernity, taking advantage of the stability brought by Gómez during 27 years of iron-fist rule and the wealth provided by what became our most valued economic resource: oil.
That responsibility fell first on his immediate successor: General Eleazar López Contreras had to face popular demands for freedom and progress, while also keeping peace and order. It was no easy goal to achieve.
For more than 40 years, Venezuelan filmmaker Carlos Oteyza wanted to bring this moment in our history to the screen. On October 22, his latest documentary feature, 1936: El año en que se perdió el miedo al poder (1936: The Year We Lost Our Fear of Power), will arrive in theaters across Venezuela.
The release is marked by comparisons between the late 1930s and the evolving post-Maduro reality. In an interview for Caracas Chronicles, Oteyza talks about the meaning that this year had on the country overall and the timely real-life circumstances happening during its production. “The historical importance of 1936 is that it came with transformations, some more concrete than others: the opening of prisons, the return of those exiled, the presence of the press and public demonstrations.”
Production started last year, given the importance of the then-upcoming 90th anniversary of López Contreras’ rise to the presidency. Of course, the events of January 3rd and all that has happened since not only made the project more relevant but gave momentum to its production crew, to the point that it was actually finished in record time.
“In both 1936 and 2026, we have new presidents. Free speech has been gaining space. There’s an environment of change and hope. There are common elements between those years,” Oteyza said while also establishing differences. “Venezuela had 3 million people in 1936 and now has about 28 million.”
A filmography on our history
This isn’t the first time Oteyza has handled this subject: he made a biographical documentary about López Contreras back in the 1990s (co-written with renowned novelist and literary figure Salvador Garmendia). It was more traditional in style and tone, including interviews with family members and other figures like former Presidents Rafael Caldera and Ramón J. Velázquez, along with author Arturo Uslar Pietri, who served as Education Minister during López Contreras’ last two years in office.
The new film diverges by having a broader scope and relying more on archival footage from that time, featuring narrations from Venezuelan actor Sócrates Serrano and a music score composed by Latin Grammy winner Daniel Espinoza. In Oteyza’s view, this movie wants to capture the political and cultural moment of that year and that its visuals “will surprise audiences.”
The movie’s biggest challenge was to find and properly review the bulk of archive material. Most of it comes from Cine Archivo Bolívar Films, the archive belonging to Oteyza’s film company, but according to producer Laura Caldera Millán, they also used material from the National Library and the National Academy of History to obtain press articles and photographs. Research assistant Mariana Cardozo helped her with this task.
Such details bring attention to a problem that many researchers and journalists have struggled with for a very long time: the state of the broader national archive. For Oteyza, “the problem of archives in Venezuela is chronic. They’ve been given low importance and interest and there’s a lack of awareness about preserving them.”
This is more obvious in places outside Caracas, where there’s not much of a related policy or even interest. He also mentions the lack of proper public access to them in general.
Oteyza’s long filmography includes both narrative and documentary features. It’s in the latter where we can find most of his body of work, like his breakthrough short film Mayami Nuestro (originally released as part of the 1981 omnibus documentary film La Misma Gente).
Yet, two of his more well-known films have remained in the public conversation: 2012’s Tiempos de dictadura (about the final days of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship) and 2016’s CAP 2 Intentos about two-time President Carlos Andrés Pérez and how his terms at Miraflores Palace shaped Venezuela to an extent that the country is still coping with the consequences of his decision.
Oteyza’s El Reventón trilogy addressed the national epic built around nationalization, the love-hate relationship that Venezuelans had with it, and how that has been presented in our cultural works.
“Pérez was a leader of Venezuelan democracy. His two administrations were complete opposites. It shows how a man can change politics or economics in a decade.” CAP 2 Intentos was not the only work of Oteyza about him, as he released CAP Inédito: Conversaciones desde la soledad (1998-1999) in 2022 about his brief return to politics with his 1998 election as a senator for Táchira state and his failed attempt to be elected for the 1999 National Constituent Assembly. He left politics and the country soon after that.
“Rómulo Betancourt was somewhat similar: the person he was in 1945-48 was not the same as in 1959-64. He went from more sectarian positions to building agreements. From confrontation to conciliation,” Oteyza claimed. He also directed a 2021 documentary on Betancourt, Rómulo Resiste.
Another work of his that has been back in the spotlight because of recent real-life developments like Trump’s oil mega-deal has been his trilogy of films about the Venezuelan oil industry, titled El Reventón, covering from the discovery of petroleum in the late 19th century to the expansion of what would become our largest economic sector, and the path toward nationalization in CAP’s first term. This sequence would end with the rise to power of Hugo Chávez.
According to Oteyza, El Reventón shows how public discourse about oil and the lack of knowledge on the subject by most Venezuelans alienated the citizenry from the industry, which later turned into malaise in the 80s and 90s, despite the role it had in the country’s overall development across the 20th century.
The trilogy later addressed the national epic built around nationalization, the love-hate relationship that Venezuelans had with it, and how that has been presented sparsely in our cultural works.
In an official press release, the new documentary frames itself as “an analytical cinematic look to the past, seen from today’s perspective but focused towards the future”. Now, it’s up to audiences to see and judge for themselves once it premieres in national movie theater chains like Cines Unidos, SuperCines and Cinex on October 22.
As you wait to watch it, you can find all the documentaries mentioned in this article, available for free, on the YouTube page of Cinesa Channel.