[From HoV] – Report of film screening “The hour of the furnaces” in London

In spite of
Manchester United and Chelsea playing a historical Champions League
final at
that very same time, over seventy people gathered on Wednesday, May 21,
at London’s Bolivar Hall for the opening of the film season Venezuela: a revolution in film, which is
organised by Hands off Venezuela in
association with the Venezuelan embassy in the UK.

The season opened
with the screening of the first part of "The hour of the furnaces" – Neo-colonialism and violence ‑ the opera prima of the legendary Grupo Cine
Liberación, founded in the sixties by filmmakers Fernando "Pino" Solanas and
Octavio Getino.

As was pointed out
in the introduction, the aim of the season is to deepen the understanding of
the Bolivarian process within a wider historical, social, political, economic,
and continental framework through the screening and debate of some
cinematographic works of outstanding artistic and documentary value, such as
"The battle of Chile", "The hour of the furnaces" or "Memories of
underdevelopment", amongst others.

José Baena,
filmmaker (Memories of a future) and
a habitual collaborator in the film magazine Vertigo, introduced "The hour of the furnaces" and spoke about the
importance of the work pf the Grupo Cine Liberación.

The screening was
followed by a debate with Alan Woods, founding member of the Hands off Venezuela campaign, and
author, amongst other works, of Reason in
Revolt: Marxist philosophy and modern science, The Venezuelan revolution and his latest book Reformism or revolution: Marxism and 21^st Century socialism,
whose Spanish edition is being presented in this year’s June Madrid Book
Fair.

Alan Woods pointed
out that Bolivar’s ideas on the unification of Latin
America, "not the dream, because dreams have a rather unrealisable
character, is not only possible, but necessary. However, this idea can only be
materialised in the struggle for socialism. Can anyone think of a united Latin
America while the oligarchs – the bankers, industrialists and landowners – keep
holding political or economic power?" he ended up asking.

The season will
continue with the screening of "Memory of a plunder " (Argentina,
2003) on the 18^th June. This work marked "Pino" Solanas’ return to a
cinema that was openly social and political. "Memory of a plunder" is an
implacable chronicle and analysis of the devastating neo-liberal wave that hit Latin America throughout the nineties.