“A country’s collapse is dramatic and in hindsight seems inevitable, but when it’s experienced gradually, on a day-by-day basis, it can almost pass unnoticed, like looking in the mirror each morning and not seeing how you age. Venezuela has been slipping down a slope for several years, but then, quite quickly, the slope’s incline got very steep, almost vertical.
I wanted to make a film about Venezuela’s crisis, but the topic is vast, and I decided to focus on just one part of it, the public health emergency. Chronic and severe medicine shortages, a dramatic increase in infant mortality, the reappearance of eradicated diseases like diphtheria, a mass exodus of doctors, a near-total collapse of the public health system. True, these things can happen in many Third World countries, but it was unheard of for a country so rich in natural resources, which for decades prided itself on one of the best public health systems in the entire region.
I began to look for characters that would illustrate the crisis, preferably from Venezuela’s previously affluent middle class, to avoid the added complexity of poverty, which is a topic in itself. Through a friend, I met Francisco, a social activist who connects donated medicines with those who need them. Then, through him, I met Efraím, a young trauma surgeon, who treats gunshot victims at a public hospital for $12 a month. Later I met Mildred and Rebeca, cancer patients, one in remission, the other undergoing chemotherapy, whose search for medicine represents what every person with a health condition is going through. And then, there were Rosalía and Carlos, an elderly couple whose drugstore is on the brink of bankruptcy, because they have nothing to sell. I was fascinated by all of them, by their dignity and their resilience as they faced a Kafkaesque reality.
As I followed them with my camera, there were a lot of things I was unaware of, but there were a few things I knew I did not want to do. I did not want to point the finger of blame at anyone and I did not want to do a film that was heavy on context and analysis. Instead, I wanted to make a film that would focus on the human drama of a political crisis.
I was aware that any film that deals with politics will, in the end, mainly preach to the converted. The public health crisis that this film portrays is fervently denied by the Venezuelan Government and by its international supporters. Because of this, I decided to play with the concept of truth by using a stage as the main location of the film. If the film will be attacked for being deceptive or fictitious, as I assumed it would, then why not stage it from the beginning and acknowledge that the characters are performing? But then, aren’t we all?”
– Tuki Jencquel, Director
