Oliver Stone Making Chávez Film: Venezuela President

CARACAS: US filmmaker and long-time Hugo Chavez fan Oliver Stone is making a movie about the late Venezuelan leader, according to President Nicolas Maduro.

“Oliver Stone is making a very beautiful film about our commander Hugo Chavez… that he will likely finish in the next months,” Maduro said on Thursday, at an event in the northwestern state of Lara.

“We are eager for its debut on the big screen in Venezuela,” he said.

Maduro said that one of Stone’s producers informed him about the film while on an official trip in Paris.

Chavez led Venezuela for 14 years until he died on March 5 after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58. A retired army lieutenant colonel, he died five months after being re-elected to a third six-year term in office.

Stone, 66, frequently has praised the outspoken Chavez, whom he interviewed for a 2009 documentary entitled “South of the Border,” exploring Chavez’s role in bottom-up change sweeping South America.

Other leftist leaders interviewed in that film included Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa.

Maduro said that Stone soon will visit Venezuela for the premiere of a film project on “the history of American imperialism.” The project, which consists of 10 episodes, premiered on the US television network Showtime in November 2012. 

The director, who has described his views as “progressive”, is known for politically-angled productions that some critics dismiss as tendentious.

On his website, Stone describes some of his films as being “at deep odds with conventional myth.”

In addition to “Platoon,” the first film in a trilogy on the Vietnam War, Stone’s movies include “JFK,” “Natural Born Killers,” and “Nixon.”

He also directed “W.” — an unflattering portrait of former US president George W. Bush — and the hit movie “Wall Street.” He wrote the screenplay for the popular film “Scarface,” which premiered in 1983 starring Al Pacino. 

Article by The News, with modifications by Venezuelanalysis.com.