01/09/2026
Open Letter to the Representative Authorities of Film and Audiovisual Media: CNAC, National Film Archive, ANAC, and CONATEL, among other non-participating entities: Celluloid, the Mushroom, and the Living Memory of the Film Club Member
By Juan Manuel Hernández Castillo
HUAYRA Mobile Cinema / Film Club Activist
I write these lines not from a personal grievance nor from a request for favors or short-term subsidies, but from the historical responsibility of someone who has dedicated forty years to building Venezuela's grassroots audiovisual heritage.
As we approach the commemoration this December of four decades since the founding of HUAYRA Mobile Cinema (1986–2026), as well as the 40th anniversary of the first clapperboard for our 35mm feature film, *Memoria de las Aguas* (Memory of the Waters), and four decades since I assumed the presidency of the Venezuelan Federation of Film Culture Centers (FEVEC), it is essential to share a collective concern about the fate of our cinematic memory.
The history of continental cinema teaches an undeniable lesson: the Cinematheque is not the creator of film clubs; it is their direct descendant. Before state budgets, decrees, and the bureaucracies of the day, there were the men and women who carried 16mm projectors on their backs, erected screens in plazas, community halls, and schools, shaping the viewer not as a mere consumer of consumer products, but as a historical subject with a critical consciousness.
However, we observe with sorrow how government institutions often end up isolating themselves from the practices that gave rise to them. When cultural management is reduced to administrative procedures and the figure of the bureaucrat overshadows the work of the grassroots film club member, film archives risk becoming cemeteries of film cans. The preservation of a film, a bulletin, or a book cannot be resolved solely through official pronouncements or under ideological umbrellas; It is resolved in daily work, under the microscope, stopping humidity, combating mold, and safeguarding the oral and filmic testimonies of our communities.
Today, the HUAYRA Mobile Cinema Film Archive preserves not only publications, research, and experiential pedagogical methodologies, but also cans of celluloid that contain the memory of peoples, ecological struggles, and social processes of the Venezuelan heartland. Knowing that valuable negatives and positives of our independent cinema face the ravages of time due to a lack of basic supplies and preservation partnerships is a wake-up call that should challenge us all.
This appeal to the National Autonomous Center of Cinematography (CNAC) and the National Film Archive, among other non-participating entities, does not seek confrontation or favoritism; it seeks to remind us of our ethical commitment to living heritage. Venezuelan cinema is not exhausted by the glitz of premieres or the showcase of current management; It resides in the transgenerational continuity of its archives and in the recognition of its creators and community promoters.
The grassroots film club is not established by appointment or decree; it is forged through continuous action. From the HUAYRA Mobile Cinema, we reaffirm our commitment to continue screening, educating, and preserving, with the certainty that the history of cinema only endures when it belongs to the people who inspire it.
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