Bolívar Films

Bolívar Films is a Venezuelan film production company, headquartered in Caracas, which works on films, advertisements, post-production, and television.

Bolivar Films
FounderLuis Guillermo Villegas Blanco
Location
  • Caracas
Region
Latin America

History

Bolívar Films began in 1939, with documentaries made by Luis Guillermo Villegas Blanco and Samuel Dembo. The first known productions were a series of documentaries under the title Estampas regionales. The company was consolidated in 1942, absorbing the companies Estudios Ávila and Cóndor Films, and setting up in the El Conde area of Caracas. It became registered on 14 October 1943.[1]

As well as government funding, Bolívar Films benefited from the first advertising boom in Venezuela, signing a contract with ARS Publicidad in 1944 to produce advertising shorts for cinema release.[2]

By 1946, the production company had its own building in eastern Caracas, was expanding and renovating its equipment to undertake the production of feature films, and could provide technical services to other producers. In addition, it produced the country's first weekly newscast with government commissions and advertising reporting.[3]

Between 1946 and 1947, Villegas Blanco planned to shoot fictional feature films for commercial theaters, inspired by the model of Argentine and Mexican cinema. He hired technical and artistic personnel in these countries, trained Venezuelan personnel, bought new equipment, built a filming studio, and sought out - albeit with little success - national and Latin American distribution and exhibition contracts. The result of this was a variety of films, of varying prestige and quality, made by foreign directors: The Demon is an Angel (1949, Carlos Hugo Christensen), The Yacht Isabel Arrived This Afternoon (1950, Christensen), That's the Woman I Want (1950, Juan Carlos Thorry), Dawn of Life (1950, Fernando Cortés), Venezuela también canta (1951, Cortés), Six Months of Life (1951, Víctor Urruchúa), Green Territory (1952, Ariel Severino and Horacio Peterson), and Light in the High Plains (1953, Urruchúa). Distribution and exhibition problems made these films commercial failures, with the company continuing to run by producing documentaries, advertisements, and newscasts.[4]

The films were more critically successful, with The Yacht Isabel... winning the Best Cinematography award at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.

References
  1. El Jesser, Luz Nahir; Ferreira, Iraima (1998). Bolívar Films en retrospectiva. Producción cinematográfica período 1940-1952 (Tesis de licenciatura). Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.
  2. Marrosu, Ambretta (1997). "Los modelos de la supervivencia". In Tulio Hernández (ed.). Panorama histórico del cine en Venezuela 1896-1993. Caracas: Fundación Cinemateca Nacional. p. 21-47. lfl59-1997-778312.
  3. Marrosu, Ambretta (1996). "Cine en Venezuela". Encuadre. Caracas: Consejo Nacional de la Cultura: 55–65.
  4. Colmenares, María Gabriela (2003). El paradigma del cine industrial y su imitación en los largometrajes de Bolívar Films, Venezuela 1949-1955 (Trabajo de ascenso). Caracas: Repositorio Institucional Saber UCV. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
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