How Movies and TV Are Helping Venezuelans Negotiate Their Country’s Collapse
Amid Food Shortages and Rising Crime, My Students Turn to The Hunger Games and Walking Dead
Last March, I was teaching twice a week at the Universidad Bicentenaria de Aragua, 75 miles west of Caracas, Venezuela. While protests were breaking out in the streets around the country, I would go to the campus not knowing whether I would be teaching a group of five to 45 students or—as was the case for most of the term—I’d have to postpone class without knowing whether the country would fall into frenzied anarchy.
My subjects were “Introduction to Cinema” and “Basics of Scriptwriting.” They may seem shallow, a poor attempt …
