Villa del Cine

Villa del Cine is part of the Ministry of Popular Power for Culture and receives funding through its National Autonomous Center of Film (CNAC).

According to the pro-Chávez website Venezuelanalysis.com, Villa del Cine is an incentive to increase film production and to enable filmmakers access to materials, equipment and facilities, not just to provide funding.

[4] As of 2012, the president of Villa del Cine is filmmaker José Antonio Varela,[6] who also directed the organization's film La Clase.

[8][9] President Chávez said the aim of Villa del Cine is to counter the lack of an alternative media[1] and to “stimulate, develop, and consolidate the national cinema industry to encourage the Venezuelan people to draw nearer to their values and idiosyncrasies.”[10] At the inauguration of Villa del Cine, Chávez said, "They [Hollywood] inoculate us with messages that have nothing to do with our traditions."

[12] Francisco Sesto, a former minister of culture who also made early contributions to the creation of audio-visual cooperatives in Venezuela, said the aim of Villa del Cine is "the transformation of the state and how people might become participants in the development of film through their own art".

[12] According to the Venezuelan government, as of 2006, Villa del Cine supported high-definition television and surround sound, and could produce "five films simultaneously".

[4] Notable projects funded by the new studio are the story of Francisco de Miranda—a revolutionary who played a key part in events leading to the Venezuelan War of Independence from Spain, which was released in 400 movie theatres and beat Superman Returns to the top of the box office in Venezuela;[12] actor and activist Danny Glover's directorial debut about Toussaint Louverture—leader of the Haitian Revolution; and a short film about Simón Bolívar.

[4] The BBC describes Villa del Cine as "a state-of-the-art production house that is changing the face of Venezuelan cinema".

The sharp increase in the number of features produced by Villa del Cine over the last years is unquestionable proof that this form of Government support has stimulated media production in the country in terms of the number and variety of films, and it has proven a valuable alternative to the Hollywood and neoliberal models of production.According to Luis Girón, CNAC's president as of 2007: "We don't lay out guidelines for a certain kind of film to be produced, we don't push a specific bias; we just want to be shown as we are."