Films Austères

A premature birth in the middle of the darkness of the 2019 national blackout in Caracas, Venezuela.

In the totalitarian Venezuela, Andrea, a teenager, heavily argues with her mother and runs away to the beach with her boyfriend Juan, a man 15 years older than her. Between jokes, rogueries and booze, the fun trip starts to grow violently as the waves bring her home.

A young couple lives together in a small apartment in the city of Caracas, Venezuela. As they spend their summer in lockdown, their relationship will become increasingly toxic and more dangerous.

This documentary takes us on a sensorial and atmospheric journey through the experiences, words and thoughts of the Venezuelan essayist and poet Armando Rojas Guardia. His early connection with the divine, the gradual inner maturation of a mystical experience that he manages to glimpse in his early adulthood, the determining and complex influence of his father (also a writer), his first crush on a young high school classmate, the profound experience of homoeroticism, the abysses of the psychotic crisis. All experiences pushed to the limit and which make up some of the singular elements of a unique artistic and intellectual quest with a broad universal scope.

When the alternative rock band Los Pijamistas agrees to play at Suena Caracas 2016, a propaganda festival organized by the Nicolás Maduro regime, the patience of guitarist and singer Andrés Bravo reaches a limit. He leaves the band and starts his solo project from scratch. The severe symptoms of the crisis and an alienated environment will break his armor. However, he will not be alone: The Beasts, two masked and mysterious beings, will accompany him along the way.

The initiation journey of a boy who must leave his childhood behind and become a man in order to keep his family together.

A confectioner prepares the cake for a party to which she hopes to be invited.

Carolina, makeup the corpse of a man, thus she enters a trance that allows him to maintain his composure in the face of pain while continues the routine.

In the southeast region of Venezuela, officially known as the Orinoco Mining Arc, an unprecedented ecocide is taking place, where a complex criminal network with transnational characteristics is being articulated. Its consequences are massively damaging the environment and the human rights of dozens of indigenous communities, leading to a historical environmental catastrophe hidden in the lungs of the planet.

Five stories, five perspectives on the same emotional territory called “country.” A Cuban actress tries to make her way in Chile; two women reunite after decades and confront the passing of time; another survives in solitude while facing her fears; a father and son seek reconciliation amid old wounds; and a birth turns into a desperate race for life. Five intertwined stories—small tales of love, loss, and hope—forming an intimate mosaic about identity, belonging, and the search for a place in the world.

This intimate letter from a migrant grandson about his Italian grandmother, also a migrant, unites in a trip to Italy the portrait of Venezuelan migration as a vital legacy of the European post-war period and the current crisis that has led the South American country to the largest exodus the continent has ever known.

A greengrocer tries to save the radio device that kept him company for most of his life. His pilgrimage through the streets in search of a solution confronts him with a city that has resigned itself to the disappearance of life forms and the loss of scenes from the past in memory.

A boy finds money, and next to it, a phone that guides him in the search for more.

A butcher keeps his business running despite the serious economic crisis that affects his country.

Jhonaikel lives in a small home made of zinc on the outskirts of the city, his four brothers and his mother face a significant lack of resources, help and a future. In the hands of little Jhon are all the possibilities, his rage, his conviction and his hope will be the engine of everything.

Leo chooses to get rid of all his material possessions to emigrate from his native country, which is in the midst of a deep humanitarian crisis, and in the process decides to visit and photograph himself in old and abandoned places in his city. Leo narrates about the deterioration of his environment and how, from the moment he became a father, he decided to stop enjoying the nostalgia from the discomfort of his home. Leo emigrates from his country to provide his daughter with quality of life and to continue enjoying the nostalgia of '98 from a distance.

Habub and Marcos establish a relationship through “video letters” during the wintertime. Through these videos, we see what daily life is like in the Sahrawi refugee camps and, more importantly, how important the friendship between these two kids is.

Belén receives the news that she has feared for several years, the time has come to vacate the house where she lives. Full of ghosts and uncertainties, that day, Belén begins her farewell.