Venezuela, In the Shadow of Chávez

By Laurence Debray

Once the richest country in Latin America, Venezuela is now one of the poorest in the world. What happened? Director Laurence Debray is back to the land of her childhood after a 20-years absence to try to make sense of Venezuela’s epic humanitarian and economic catastrophe. Her interviews with the populist president Hugo Chávez in 1998 and Juan Guiadó, the current self-proclaimed president, in January 2019, serve as bookends to an investigation that combines the insights of experts, the testimony of political actors, and the daily struggle of ordinary citizens. And answers the question: how did the revolution led by Chávez on behalf of the poor end in national bankruptcy?