Synopsis
The Catatumbo lighting lights a village over the water. It’s called El Congo Mirador. Within it, the evocation of the first villages over the Maracaibo lake reminds us the spirit that founded our country: la Pequeña Venecia (the little Venetia, or “Venezuela”)
Our country: so beautiful and so deteriorated.
So rich? So poor?
We really don’t know. That’s why we decided to star a trip all over. Just to observe whom we are.
How is it that we are about to come into a war? (A mean war against the people that is just like us)
How is it that we act like enchanted? It reminds us those rats following a guy blowing a flute.
These days the Venezuelans are quite frequently into the feeling of “something different” and huge that is about to happen. The “majority” runs towards the idea of becoming “something different”, a giant country, a potency.
Meanwhile, lots of propaganda goes on in the media.
But. Deep down. Who are we?
So the trip begins. Away from the masses, the TVs and the omnipresence of the political media show. And we meet few people. Twelve of them are our characters:
The oil engineer, the kids living in a tiny village over the waters of the Maracaibo lake, the teacher bringing books to the top of the Andes mountains with the help of mules, a Bolivian family running a tiny circus in the middle of nowhere, a Sesna pilot that takes us into Guiana, the fisher man fitting against and within the sea, the “justice” fighter riding his bike in a state buildings barrio, a ex-national guard officer telling us about the “real” justice, and the students “getting the law” on their backs while shouting for freedom… a old woman mining in a devastated jungle, a medium telling us that there is a final judge, a indigenous man guiding us, along with the spirits, into Roraima, the mother of all waters.
All of them people riding for the utopia itself. In a country in which we fight against each other, there’s still some people convinced that at the end, all of us human beings, are pretty much the same with nature.
Celestino, an indigenous man, says it clearly: all of we will become spirits and fly to the top of Roraima and wait until the end of the World, until the end of times.
About the Venezuelans is a trip that takes us into a meditation around the question of who are we?
As Venezuelans, right now who are we. A collage made with snapshots that put together try to light the question of what is going on in Venezuela. Snapshots of we: Venezuelans, running after an utopia.
Venezuelans: so rich, and so poor.