Section Seven
Electronic Bandits: the Media Wars South of the Border
In 1983, shortly after the invasion of Grenada, I traveled to Nicaragua with a group of video makers to make a tape about the situation there. In the tense atmosphere of the Reagan presidency, everyone expected an imminent invasion by the United States. While there I met several Nicaraguans who were making their own media of the situation and began an exchange with them. The personel from Sandinista TV were young enthusiasts with consumer-type camcorders. As an independent producer from the US, where the networks reject small format video, it was exciting to be in a country where the camcorder seemed the official recorder. The cultural events and political demonstrations we attended were all recorded on half inch tape and broadcast to the entire country. “Nicaraguan Video: Live from the Revolution” is a overview of the video production in that beseiged country at the height of the Sandinista years.
My interest in Latin America began in 1952. I was twelve years old and my father got a job in a US owned Cuban mine. My family moved to a remote outpost on a Cuban bay, 500 miles from Havana. It was 1952 and Cuba was in the throes of the Batista dictatorship. This experience of seeing first hand the ravages of corrupt bureaucracy in league with exploitative colonialism left a deep impression on me. I returned there in the 1980’s for the first time since I left in 1953, when I was thirteen years old. The 1959 Cuban revolution had changed much, not the least of which was Cuban media. . “Notes from Havana” is a look at the Cuban Film Festival of 1986 and the inauguration of the School of Three Worlds at San Antonio de Los Baños. "Women as Cultural Producers On Cuban TV: The Case Of Maritza Rodriguez And Los Abuelos Se Rebelan" is an essay about Cuban Television, which I studied for several years in preparation for curating an exhibtion series called Stone's Throw: TV from Cuba, Island in Goliath's Sea, co-curated by Monica Melamid. I was especially interested in a comedy series about feuding families and a senior couple who fall in love. "Three Images of Housing in Cuba" was inspired by the juxtaposition of three films in a class I taught on Cuban media. I was struck by the changing meanings of the iconography of building decay in the three decades of the revolution.
"Community Media in Brazil" is description of the video-mobile that visits the favelas of Rio every evening in a different street corner. TV Maxambomba” traces the route of the mobile video team who produce and distributed video by and about favela residents. This sort of mobile media is descended from the Cinetrains of the early days of the Soviet Union, when trains equipped with film projector traveled across the vast expanses to mobilize peasant and worker support for the revolution. In both situations the idea was not only to present finished films, but also to make them: the have the audiences become active participants in the media. The Cinetrains had cameras and lights and cars with film laboratories for processing. In each town, in each factory they filmed the workers, processed the film and played it back in an intgeractive loop. Likewise in Brazil, the TV Maxambomba vans project tape, but also have a live camera, which is also projected on the large screen, where neighborhood residents comment on a variety of issues, or sing or tell jokes.
The internet has been hyped as a "revolutionary" tool, but the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas were the force that proved that might actually be true. “Zapatistas on Line” is a look at the use of computers and the internet by these clever guerrillas in Chiapas.
Nicaraguan Video: Live from the Revolution
December, 1983
The Nicaraguan Revolution occured in 1979 when almost the entire country applauded the triumphant entry into Managua of the Sandinista revels, who had been inspired by the memory of Augusto Cesar Sandio, a liberal general in the 1920's who held out against the occupation of the country by United States' Marines. In the early 1980's hundreds of sympathetic U.S. citizens flocked to Nicaragua to show thier solidarity of the aims of the revolution and to assist in the process of rebuilding the country after the damage of both the civil war and the earthquakes of the 1970's. I was part of several delegations to Nicaragua, and wrote this overview of how small format video was being incorporated into the new government.
Any public event in Nicaragua that attracts more than 30 persons will also draw a video crew. Not the U.S. network crews who limit their coverage to interviews with irate La Prensa editors and impatient consumers in food lines. Not the European crews who work the solidarity brigades from both East and West Germany. Not the independent U.S. and Canadian crews who line up en masse for a Mary Hartman (the nun, not the soap opera dip) tour of La Granja, the model prison farm, or wait for a visit with Ernesto Cardenal at the former Somoza estate, headquarters of the Ministry of Culture. No. The public events-the concerts, the neighborhood meetings, the elections rallies, the funerals of martyrs, the marches of mothers, the openings of hospitals, the bombing of hospitals, the openings of schools and likewise their attacks by Contras, the school graduations, the theater festivals, the ceremonies for land title distribution to campesinos, the Cara Al Pueblo meeting (Face the People). All these are documented by the video crews of the new Nicaragua.
Portable video has been an essential tool in recent social struggles in the U.S., but because the movements it has been a part of are so marginal, it has been limited to taping organizing meetings here and there, and lame discussion programs on public access cable and late nights on public television. In Nicaragua it is a part of a social dynamic that is transforming a country. Video is not just documenting that process. It is very much a part of that process.
The following are notes from two visits to Nicaraguan November 1983 and in August 1984. It is also based on information supplied by my son Ezra , who lives and works in Managua as a video liaison person for X-Change TV, an organization devoted to cultural exchanges between Central America and the US.
The first thing one realizes about Nicaragua media, and the revolution of which it is a part, is that there is no single party line imposed. This is a diverse society, a nation brought together under a broad coalition of groups, with a wide variety of beliefs and styles. This variety is reflected in the various groups producing and distributing video. There is a different feeling in their work spaces and in the tapes they make.
There are five main centers of production in Nicaragua. The largest and best-equipped is the Sistema Sandinista-- the national television system. The second is the video workshop that is part of the Agrarian Reform Ministry-- Communicaciones Midinra. The third is Taller Popular De Video (People's Video Workshop), which is a part of the Sandinista Workers Union. The fourth is INCINE, under the Ministry of Culture, whose main product is film, but whose work includes video production. The last is Pro-TV which documents the Cara Al Pueblo meeting and produces programs for the Ministry of Interior.
Sistema Sandinista
The Sistema programs two channels every day-- one from noon onwards, and the other from 4 PM. The programming, like much of Nicaragua, is an amazing assortment of contradictions-- from the saccharine novelas from Mexico and Colombia, to the dubbed adventures of Barnaby Jones. It has ads for McDonalds (yes, there is one in Managua). Coca-Cola and Soviet tractors. In November 1983 the station logo was a group of tiny animated peace doves who flapped their way around a globe to form the letters SSTV as a voice-over, while an accompanying vertical crawl proclaimed "Toda Las Armas al Pueblo!" (All Arms to the People!). Despite its revolutionary station breaks, the Sistema's productions are often reworking of U.S. formats. Television everywhere has been so completely dominated by the U.S. model that "professionalism" has come to be defined as how closely Nicaraguan TV resembles NBC.
The Soviet film that developed in the 1920's was forging new paths and was able to leap over what few conventions existed in film at the time. Nicaraguan TV comes 40 years into a TV world in which 180 national TV systems look as though they were all housed on the 40th floor of Rockefeller Center.
The most unusual item on an evening's schedule is apt to be the news, partly because what is happening in Nicaragua is unusual and interesting, but also because the form in which it is broadcast is more open-ended and spontaneous than most of the Sistema offerings. Activities are shot hand-held. This doesn't mean they are wiggly. Most of the cameramen (in Nicaragua the Sistema camera people that I saw were men) are rock-steady and have no real need for tripods. Their stories are often visual essays--not many interviews and no "on-the-scene" reporters. Information is supplied by the newscasters in voice-over, but often long pieces of visual material run without comment-- in a style that is leisurely and flowing-- more like U.S. public access, where time is free and information isn't sandwiched between commercials. I have the feeling that this is more from lack of enough tightly edited material than from any theoretical inspiration of management. One news show I saw was 15 minutes of inchoate drunken reveling at the Santo Domingo Festival. Church festivals are always covered. This is a country where the institutional church is in direct opposition to the policies of the government, but where three priests hold cabinet-level positions. All church activities are news-- from the Purissima Festival to the bitter pronouncements of anti-Sandinista Archbishop Obando Bravo. Participants in the ongoing church debate are endlessly interviewed in the TV studios. On most nights the church is at least a third of the news. The segments on the news that are produced in the studio are often awkward and replete with transitional errors and shaky chroma-key edges. The occasional goofs and missed cues have made the administration of the Sistema reluctant to distribute their news programs abroad. X-Change TV has repeatedly tried to get samples of the news for distribution, but Sistema executives would rather lend out their "professional" work--slick entertainment specials-- in the "Live-from Lincoln-Center" genre. These canned and controlled artsy shows are a long way from the "live-from-the-revolution" programs that X-Change has in mind. But the Sistema is probably ashamed of the news. The open informality may charm Northern visitors, the transitional goofs may denote self-referential process consciousness to a Screen subscriber, but they only give ulcers to the Sistema's producers.
The attraction of X-Change to the more primitive news is an example of the kind of solidarity activity that has been one element of an on-going debate within the Ministry of Culture and the artistic community in Managua. One of the results of the revolution has been an explosion of creativity among the campesinos; native writing and primitive painting have proliferated. This type of art is always popular with solidarity groups. A German art gallery sponsored huge editions of primitive painting posters-- reproduced on expensive paper with an elaborate graphic technique. Likewise, editions of compassionate poetry, produced by internationalists, have been printed and bound and distributed widely. The national folklorico dance movement is doing great, receiving donations from all over the world. But professional artists have asked: where, in this scheme, is the support for serious artists who may be developing a more complex and probing aesthetic? The attraction of revolutionary tourists for primitive posters leaves out Nicaraguan artists who have spent long careers in the arts. Most of these artists would come from middle and upper class families, who had the leisure and material wealth to support what in a desperately poor country was viewed as a luxury. In a country where every piece of paper and every pencil is a precious resource, the Ministry of Culture cannot afford to put out editions of their works. Economic concerns are not the only issue, as there are many who believe that the arts should be mass-based and that supporting an elite group of university-trained artists only perpetuates the class differences that still exist from pre-Revolutionary times. While the debate continues, an important role of the Sistema has been to make national performance of both the folklorico and the professional theater and dance groups available to a wide audience. Sandino-Santo y Sena (Saint and Symbol), their most elaborate presentation to date, is a dance and music spectacular that was recorded at a live performance in a ruined hotel that has recently become the opera house of Managua. The building is a crumbling shell with an eerie presence that forms a poignant reminder that this is NOT a typical theater in a typical Latin American country, but constitutes an art built on the crumbling remains of resistant traditions. I saw a performance there in August, where the vigor and enthusiasm of the production burst through the decay of the surroundings. The technical virtuosity of the lighting, the dancing and the hundred-piece string (!) orchestra was in stark contrast to the extreme poverty of most of the audience and with the decrepit state of the theater. Imagine that an earthquake has destroyed New York's Plaza Hotel and you are sitting in its ruins watching Ballet Hispanico with an audience of 3,000 unemployed workers from the South Bronx. Needless to say, there are a few differences. For one thing, because of the revolution, the theater is THEIR theater. You feel it when you are there with them. That sense of empowerment is a part of the event; it is also a part of the TV presentations that record it. The audience cut-aways are therefore different. They serve the function of reminding the TV audience of just whose show it is anyway (Come to think of it, maybe the Lincoln Center cutaways serve the same purpose.)
MIDINRA
Communicaciones Midinra is part of the Agrarian Ministry. The offices are a little outside of Managua on the road to Masaya, in what was a rather well-to-do hacienda-type house with a large interior patio surrounded by grandiose archways. When I was last there the patio was being used to store empty VCR boxes. Below the arches, the desks and files are an amazing collection of types-- from Danish Modern to Ramada Inn Inquisition style. Their walnut and teak finishes are stenciled in prominent places like subway graffiti tags with huge numbers in bright red and white paint. The numbers designate from which farm the furniture was confiscated. Many of the large farms in Nicaragua were abandoned after the revolution and the confiscated property from these ranchos gives Midinra a material edge among the video groups. Desks and files they may have, but the office desperately needs more telephones. Over 70 persons work there, and their single telephone is the kind of frustrating bottleneck through which any work in present-day Nicaragua must eventually pass. Video isn't the only thing that Midinra does. They have several printing presses and do the work of documenting and explaining the agrarian reform process Their primary aim is making the agrarian reform work understood by and available to the peasants and farm workers in the countryside, and secondarily informing a wider public-- city dwellers of Managua, Leon and Granada, but also other countries and international organizations. Several of their publications are in English. Arturo Zamora is director of Comunicaciones Midinra. It is indicative of his self-effacing style that he has not desk or office, but hangs out from work space to work space jumping up apologetically to give this or that worker back his or her seat. Arturo directs the printing, audio-visual and video workshops. The audio-visual is a large department with a still-photo darkroom for both color and black and white. They have produced over a dozen slide shows with synchronized tracks. Subjects include "The Benefits of Soy Beans" and "Nutrition for Pregnant Women". Midinra is planning an audio studio and hopes to do a regular radio series in the near future. The video department consists of four rooms--an editing room, a tape library, an equipment room and an office. Needless to say, the office is the furthest from the air-conditioner. In Nicaragua. equipment and tapes are treated with the utmost respect. This is not mystified Third World awe, but a concrete understanding of the hassles involved in part-replacement and tape purchase. Augusto Tablada is director of the video department. He likes to tell how he was caught in monsoon-type rains in an open field with their new Sony M-3 camera and a 4800 VCR deck. He took off his rain gear and put it as additional protection over the already plastic-encased equipment, and spent seven hours in pouring rain trying to hold the equipment out of the mud. "The camera costs dollars," he grins. "I'm only worth cordobas." Exchange dollars are practically impossible to get, and cordobas won't buy equipment. All of the video groups in Nicaragua rely heavily on donated equipment. Midinra films are available in both 3/4 Umatic and Beta Max. Most production is shot and edited on 3/4, then transferred to consumer Beta Max for distribution to the countryside. Each regional headquarter has a Beta player and has regular showing of Midinra tapes. They also show work by U.S. independents and even a few Hollywood films. Miriam Carrero comes to work at Midinra with a shopping bag full of powdered milk. The boxes have a smiling blond and blue-eyed toddler on the front. The lettering on the box is Cyrillic: the milk is Russian. Powdered milk from the U.S. is difficult to get here. All U.S. products are harder and harder to get. Miriam has two children-- a four-month-old baby and a three-year-old girl. Her mother assists in the childcare, as in many Nicaraguan extended families, but even so, working as a video editor is difficult with two young ones. Miriam gets up at 5 a.m. to go to the market to be sure she can get the week's supply of powdered milk for the baby. Miriam started out in film work at INCINE. She recently changed to work at the agrarian video program initially because the pay was better. INCINE pays only 3, 700 cordobas a month ($130) while Midinra gives 6,000, almost twice the pay. Now Miriam is very enthusiastic about video and wants to learn all aspects of production. She runs the editing machines but is very much involved in content decisions. From what I could gather of the post-production process, tapes at Midinra evolve organically (to use an agricultural term) from the material collected. The camera person works with the editor. Input can come from many persons at Midinra and the atmosphere is that of a collective, not a hierarchy. Technical advice is supplied on occasion by agricultural advisors: for example, a cattle geneticist was working closely of a recent tape on cattle production. Midinra's work is primarily focused on agrarian topics, but, like Jaime Wheelock, wide-ranging director of the Agrarian Ministry, their interests extend to theoretical and historical issues as well. MIDINRA completed an historical tape to commemorate the 50th year anniversary of Sandino's death, a mixture of archive footage, recent war footage and agrarian images. Of all the tapes I have seen from Nicaragua, it takes the most risks. It is a passionate experimental tape, using Eisenstein-type montage juxtapositions to rev up emotions. (After a shot of a U.S. helicopter being shot down, there is a close-up of a bull being castrated.) The Sandino anniversary was the focus of a series on the Sistema. Each of the comandantes had hour-long interviews in which they answered questions posed to them by the Sistema. MIDINRA took Jaime Wheelock to the countryside, where he discussed the issues with the campesinos. They then edited this into an hour program and wanted the Sistema to run that instead of the stuffy studio format interview. The television system refused to air it, saying it did not fit their series. (This type of evasion is a familiar story to independents who try to deal with U.S. public TV.) Actually the relationship of MIDINRA to the Sistema is one of the more baffling issues for an outsider to comprehend. MIDINRA has to BUY time on the Sistema: 60,000 cordobas for each hour of program. They do a monthly program, but all the time is paid for, and their programs are subject (as in the interview case) to rejection by the management.
MIDINRA has been a haven for foreign independents. It's open atmosphere and friendly workers have made it a place where U.S. independent filmmakers could align their cameras, splice light cables or just hang out and screen tapes. In a sense, Midinra's video grew out of the independent movement in the U.S. Prior to 1979, Augusto spent time in the U.S. and worked with Eddie Becker, an independent producer in Washington. After the revolution, Eddie came to MIDINRA to help train agricultural workers in video skills. The students from his class are still the mainstays of video people at MIDINRA. Eddie found that they picked up camera techniques quite easily. What he ended up spending most of his time teaching was how to make a good solder. He brought with him three connector kit bags from Radio Shack and several hundred yards of cable. The cables they produced are still in use. A trouble-shooting manual that he designed for them is the basic handbook of their equipment room. Most internationalist media people sooner or later find their way out of the Carretera Masaya to MIDINRA's workshop. Before they leave, they are given a list of missing parts and needed equipment to send back. Video people from Germany (East and West) have been active in their support of Midinra and have raised money from trade unions for essential equipment. A major effort is underway at the present time to do a TV series with West Germany; Miriam is co-producing it with a woman producer from Munich. This show will be a docu-drama series on farm life. It is a children's series: the first program shows a young boy visiting his grandfather on a coffee farm. The grandfather explains in detail just how things have changed since the revolution. Another is about the effects of the war on the coffee harvest. MIDINRA would like to develop their co-production possibilities. They have been aghast at the enormous sums of money that the U.S. (and Canadian and European) producers spend on equipping a production in Nicaragua. Arturo suggests, "Why not use our equipment and work in co-production with us? That way we can all benefit." Arturo recently assisted Bianca Jagger on a documentary about ecology in Nicaragua for distribution in the U.S. Just as with their printed materials, MIDINRA sees their audience as including not only Nicaraguans. "We want to do our part to counter the misinformation that the world hears about Nicaragua," Arturo explains. He has embarked on a series called Alternative Views (not to be confused with the Austin cable access show of the same name) to begin to counter Western press bias. This type of production could also be done as co-productions, he feels. Future plans at MIDINRA include a feature film on the history of Sandino. Wilfredo Ortega Mercado, who is currently the tape librarian, has a plan for a program on cultural seduction-- how young compesinos lose their minds to American consumer goods. Miriam hopes to produce a program on women agricultural workers. And the ongoing work continues-- the documentation of land reform, the construction of co-operative dairies, the research into ecological methods of pest control and health care in rural areas. MIDINRA also serves as a liaison from the producer to the consumer. Of their tapes that have been most popular here in the U.S. as part of the X-Change TV series, two are on very parochial specific topics: Que Pasa Con el Papel Higienico, and Que Pasa Con Las Papas. The first, "What's Up With the Toilet Paper?" is a sort of point-counterpoint about why there isn't enough toilet paper in the country. Why the shortage? Humorous and catchy interviews with people on the street convey the range of feeling about toilet paper. There IS a real shortage in Nicaragua, and this lack has become one of the major complaints by the sectors of the population that are most against the revolution. By repeating these complaints and disseminating them, Midinra itself has been criticized. The criticism against the tape only increased its popularity, and the tape became an important element in the ongoing discussions about shortage, hoarding and rationing. The second tape is about potatoes. Potatoes grow well in Nicaragua, but poor farming methods have slowed production. This is a tape in praise of the potato that includes instructions for successful harvests.
Taller Popular
Memories of the war of insurrection are ever-present in Nicaragua. Taller Popular de Video Timoteo Valasquez is a workshop named for a fallen comrade. It is part of the Central Sandinista de Trabajadores (CST), the largest union in Nicaragua. Like Midinra, they also have a regular series on the Sistema, and also distribute via Betamax to union locals throughout the country. It is housed and shares resources with Tercer Cine, a private production company composed of Jackie Reiter, Wolf Tirado and Jan Kees de Rooy. The Taller began as a Super 8 workshop initiated by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron, a special project sponsored by the United Nations. Julia Le Sage also worked with the project: "We worked mostly on editing techniques and alternatives to synch sound interviews, such as the use of music, other taped verbal material and background sound. At the suggestion of Amina Luna, one of the CST filmmakers, we began filming a project on working women's participation in the revolution, which the group has since completed in video." Super 8 processing soon became too difficult, as Kodak withdrew all trade with Nicaragua. The workshop now works almost entirely in video. Amina is still one of the producers, along with Francisco Sanchez, Oscar Ortiz and Ileana Estreber. Their productions center on people-- close shots of faces alternating with their homes, their land, their work. Asi Avanzamos is a tape about a cattle collective, faced with all the problems of building up production, together with the stresses and material losses of the on-going brutal Contra war. The determination of the people to keep on working (asi avanzamos--so we advance) is evident on their hopeful faces. There is a dreamy, romantic quality to many of the Taller productions. This is not, however, the pathetic view of "primitive" life that we sometimes find in the work of Gringo anthropologist/filmmakers. The faces of the people- emanate a hope that is reinforced by the real accomplishments they have gained in the face of incredible odds. The ease with which the peasants participate with the video production gives the discourse an intimacy that transcends the interview format. This sharing with the videomakers is what characterizes the work of U.S. independent Skip Blumberg. There is a one-to-one relationship with the camera that is as close as video can get to an authentic human relationship. This intimacy can, on occasion, make the Taller tapes deeply tragic. Las Mujeres is about two women who work in the reconstruction in one of the northern areas. They describe some of the hardships they have encountered in their work, but go on to list the accomplishments of the literacy campaign and the agrarian reform work in the face of the fear and intimidation that the Contras impose. The bravery of these two women included their willingness to talk with the video crew. Shortly after the paper appeared on television, they both were killed-- brutally murdered. One was tortured and raped along with her six children. This type of Contra terror is not unusual; their targets are those who work with the revolution. The Contras rarely attack the army. Instead they go after the schoolteachers, the doctors, the nurses and agrarian reform workers--and, on occasion, those peasants who share their hope and dedication with a video crew.
INCINE
INCINE is the film production unit of the ministry of Culture. It was born under fire in the mountains before the revolution. I talked with Noel Rivera, who was one of the "muchachos" who formed the mainstay of the army of insurrection. He was only 15 years old when he left home to fight against Somoza's National Guard. In his battalion was a film crew, which needed someone to run the Nagra, the basic studio audio recorder used for film documentaries. He became the sound man after a few days training and has worked with INCINE ever since. INCINE has made one feature-- Alcino and the Condor and many documentaries. Their newsreels are often shown before the feature films in the theaters around the country. Half of the theaters in Managua are privately owned and INCINE has to pay for the time for newsreel projection. The theater owners refuse to play shorts that are longer than ten minutes. Noel recounts the story of a newsreel he helped make that was 12 minutes long. When he saw it at the theater, it was strangely truncated. The theater owner had just lopped off the last two minutes of the documentary in mid-sentence. Movie theaters in Managua show the same junk films that we get on Times Square. Kung Fu movies are the most popular and audiences line up at 7:30 a.m. to see a 9:30 show on Saturday morning. However, the INCINE Cinemateca is a state-owned theater that shows a few Eastern European films (Czech, Hungarian) and occasionally an independent feature from the U.S. Cuban films draw large crowds. INCINE has a video department directed by Rosanne Lacayo. The Lacayos are the main force behind INCINE and some have accused the organization of being a family affair. Their most recent tape is a homage to Julio Cortazar, poet and friend to the Nicaraguan revolution. Within the cultural debate mentioned earlier, INCINE stands squarely with the "serious art" contingent. Their main interest lies in producing film versions of Latin American novels.
INCINE has been on the receiving end of lavish gifts of production equipment and production assistance. The immediate successes of ICAIC. The Cuban film production institute, led many to hope that Nicaragua's film production would accomplish similar feats. Several factors mitigate against this. The most important is the strain and pressures of the war situation in Nicaragua. Except for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the attempts on Fidel's life and the imposed economic constraints, Cuba has not had to withstand the brutal forces of reaction that attack Nicaragua daily. Second, and certainly a part of the first, is the worsening economic situation, with the price of film and processing in Mexican laboratories rising daily. Third is more internal to INCINE. Their organization seems the most chaotic of the media groups that I visited. INCINE is built on grandiose schemes that get hung up in the simplest of details. While I was there, a group of technicians from Los Angeles were sponsoring technical workshops. The group came with a large donation of lights and equipment. They were surprised at the lack of the most basic tools, however, and were unable to use most of their lights. There was only one circuit capable of running ONE of their lights in the workshop building. These workshops were funded by the Common Sense Foundation. .Perhaps they could have had more common sense and have been more utilitarian in the scope. But quien sabe? Maybe some nascent cinematographer was tapped by the classes and will emerge as a leader of the budding Nicaraguan film industry. In the meantime, the video production unit is becoming more and more important as a center of activity at INCINE.
Cara Al Pueblo
The other video production unit is the audio-visual department of the Department of the Interior (the Ministry headed by charismatic and original Sandinista Tomas Borge). A unit from this department produces weekly Cara Al Pueblo meetings and also does production for the Ministry of Education-- both documentation and tapes for instructional purposes. The Cara Al Pueblos are weekly meetings of the comandantes with the people in the barrios around Managua and in the countryside. These are perhaps the most characteristic public events of the revolution; they are to Nicaragua what Fidel's speeches are to Cuba. It is a significant difference that these are two-way-- not the voice of a single leader, but the questions of the people directed to a group of their leaders. These may include local leaders, the directors of the local block associations. The questions range from specifics on the new sewer lines for the neighborhood to more philosophical questions of the relationship between church and state. When the meetings are held in Managua, they are broadcast live from a mobile van. These programs are very popular and would have high ratings if the Sistema bothered to measure that. There have been accusations that these meetings are orchestrated by the local CDSs (neighborhood committees for defense of the revolution), and that only acceptable questions are allowed, but the shows I saw were spontaneous and often highly critical of the government. The Cara Al Pueblo meetings will become increasingly important as a safety valve, but as an effective way for people to have input into national decision. The degree to which these meetings express the authentic fears, angers and hopes of the people will be an important measure of public accountability. This process is an authentic national dialogue, and the participation of video is crucial. The Cara Al Pueblo has a well-equipped van which is the envy of the other video producers of Managua. One of the ironies of the situation there is that, despite the collaborative attitude at the highest level of government, there exists among departments a great deal of competition and possessiveness. There is very little communication among the various organizations. INCINE has no idea of what Midinra is doing. Midinra has no way to gauge their schedule on the Sistema, because they are not privy to the Sistema's long-range planning and do not know month-to-month where their slot will be positioned. The Taller has no contact with INCINE. They have only one 4800 portable recording deck. If that is in the repair shop, they have to cancel all their shoots--even though there are at least six other decks that could be loaned from other workshops. There is only one engineer who works at the Sistema who has put his job on the line by sometimes sneaking a workshop deck into his shop to repair. There are healthy aspects to the independence of the various groups-- there is no monolithic look to Nicaraguan video-- but all the groups would benefit more from more sharing of resources. It is sobering to contemplate the future of Nicaraguan video. Even if the vicious Contra war stops (which would happen almost immediately if the U.S. stopped funding it), the economic situation is so difficult that conditions will probably worsen in the short run. As the dollar pinch get harder, there will be increased struggles within the trade unions. Rampant inflation has hit most workers, even though the prices of staples are fixed. Midinra, INCINE, the Sistema and the Cara al Pueblo are all part of the government. They are the "voice of the people" only in so far as the government remains true to the ideals and aspirations of the revolution. As a voice of the workers, Taller Popular de Video may play an increasingly important role in articulating their needs and dissatisfactions. The real work of the revolution is in the future and video can play a constructive role in so far as national media expression retains authenticity and pluralism. The U.S. independent community has been an important source for Nicaraguan video-- a source for technical assistance, for equipment donations and for programming exchange. But perhaps most important has been the inspiration of video use. The kind of personal human community video that has characterized our marginalized independent video work here in the U.S. has become the standard for a video community in Nicaragua whose cameras are the eyes of their nation, and whose nation stands at the heart of current human history.
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