Venezuela: Country of Lost Children

“Latin America is the most unequal place in the world and Venezuela is the epitome of this phenomenon. It’s where the largest oil reserves on the planet prevail and at the same time the highest rates of misery and violence in the region. While in Caracas the government oligarchy rides around in Ferraris and private planes financed by corruption and drug trafficking, in the slums people die for not having 10 cents to buy a loaf of bread or an antibiotic to cure an infection. The vast social and economic devastation of the country in recent years has triggered the emigration of more than 4 million Venezuelans, figures only comparable to the migrations resulting from the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. As a result of all this, more than one million children have been left to die in the wombs of their mothers, in the doors of hospitals, in their homes of hunger, or are killed in the streets by other children like them or by the government itself.

Helping these children is my only purpose for doing this film.

In a country as hermetic as Venezuela, where information is filtered and manipulated by the government, and where any effort to expose their reality is punished with jail or death, the existence of this film is almost a miracle. It is the result of the efforts of a team committed to exposing the enormous social catastrophe in Venezuela and at the same time of Yorbenis, Kiara, Victoria, Carolina, and all the brave children and women who put their stories at the service of this project. This film should be a document to seek the attention of the international community. If the future of a country is its children, Venezuela would seem to be a country without a future. However, I am one of those dreamers who still believe that there is hope and that documentary films can generate important societal changes when made with honesty and good intentions. I only hope that this film can bring a little light to these kids and women and that their stories will never be forgotten.” – Juan Camilo Cruz, Director

“Venezuela is a failed state. A country forgotten by the world. For most people, there is no thought of the future, of the next month or even of the day after next. They live and survive day by day. Many children have to struggle through this hard everyday life alone. Our protagonist Yorbenis is representative of millions of children and young people in the world in his struggle for survival. There is hardly any help from outside. But the people in the Santa Rosa Barrio in Maracaibo do not want pity. They help themselves. They help each other and thus preserve a remnant of dignity and humanity in this dystopian world. Like a single tree in a dry desert. And they reveal an impressive strength to resist the brutal consequences of an autocratic regime. This is a lived courage that can also be an example for the people of rich countries like ours. The film gives them a voice for the world.” – Mark Wiese, Director