Comuna en construcción (Comuna Under Construction) “Influential media's fixation on a charismatic personality such as Hugo Chávez unfortunately means that the countless interesting processes taking place in the country remain hidden.” Oliver Ressler's programmatic remark on his previous film 5 Factories – Worker Control in Venezuela (2006) also applies to his third work produced in Venezuela in collaboration with Dario Azzellini. Comuna Under Construction reveals what the “Socialism of the twenty-first century” propagated by Chávez might mean in practice. In the mode of a simple listening and looking at various gatherings in the poor neighborhoods of the capital Caracas, and also in rural areas, the film accompanies—without comment or interview—a stage of a fascinating process that has taken hold of large segments of the country. Tens of thousands consejos comunales (communal councils) have been founded in Venezuela in the spirit of the new constitution, which greatly emphasizes political participation. These basis democracy neighborhood gatherings attend to housing refurbishment, health care, and garbage pick-up routes, with financial support of the state, and to a great extent do so independently of the local administration. They can, however, also found communal enterprises and decide on the priorities in the city district. Bit by bit, the film uncovers the phenomenon, which might appear from an affluence-accustomed perspective as a compensatory one in the face of a lacking or corrupt administration, as a prospering parallel structure ultimately intended to entirely replace the old state: several councils can join to a commune, several communes, in the end, to a communal town. Comuna Under Construction puts forth for discussion the practice of a—by no means conflict-free—revolution that is not exhausted in the takeover of power, but rather, is defined as a complex construction process leading to the goal of self government of the citizens.
