Diego Rísquez

Documentary in four parts on Latin American cinema. Third episode: from the 1960s, France and Europe showed a real enthusiasm for Latin American cinema, but the latter remained hampered by numerous economic and political obstacles.

Reel 21 of Gérard Courant’s on-going Cinematon series.

The Orinoko: main character in the film. The first part is set during the pre-conquest and is represented as an earthly paradise. A shaman has precognitive visions: go to Columbus and the Catholic missionary in 1498.

Tierna es la Noche is a film without bullets nor sea, without mosquitoes, without peasants nor flowers. It only contains a barman, a man and a beautiful woman who lives in a bathroom. For commercial reasons, we have included two policemen, a drop of blood and a multilingual nymphomaniac. For aesthetic reasons, a tear and a black man. For both reasons, the film takes place anachronically, during the fifties and nineties in a make-believe city called Caracas. It's a story of histerics, like all stories, unfinished.

An homage to the painter Armando Reveron, this is the story of a contemporary painter who chooses to live in isolation in a hut alongside the Caribbean Sea. Along with Claudia, his muse, he works using nature as his source of inspiration. Alfredo, a friend and art connoisseur, forces the painter to create a series of paintings for an exhibition in New York that aims at achieving fame and putting him on the contemporary art market. The film presents a tropical perspective of the dilemma between artist and the commercializing of his work.

In the wake of a banking crisis, four middle class friends throw a 'white glove' hold up, only to find out that their bank has already gone bankrupt.

This is the first of Diego Risquez’ trilogy of avant-garde cinematic treatments of historical subjects. Using a painterly style, it features portraits, still lifes, and scenes shot as tableaux vivants, the film provides an experimental interpretation of the arrival of the Spanish and their domination of the New World, as well as the Venezuelan Independence movement, focusing on the role of Simón Bolívar. There is no dialogue or narration, simply a musical score and the depiction of events from Bolívar’s career.

This low-budget avant garde feature uses no dialogue in telling the story of the reaction of the Spanish court after the initial exploration of America. A botanist revels in his collection of new plants. A native is baptized in a church ceremony, and nuns and court jesters appear throughout this rambling feature.

Film by Julio Neri.

A thesis on the history, the successes and failures of Venezuelan and Latin American cinema as a whole; demonstrating how little interaction there is between Ibero-American cinema