Oliver Stone to make Chavez ‘addendum,’ not feature

LOS ANGELES, USA – Oliver Stone is shooting an “addendum,” not a new movie, about Hugo Chavez, using outtakes from an old film.

A spokeswoman for the film director made this clarification on Tuesday, July 2, after remarks to the contrary by the successor of the late Venezuelan leader.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced last month that Stone “is making a very beautiful film about our commander Hugo Chavez. We are eager for its debut on the big screen in Venezuela.”

Maduro said he was informed about the film by a producer for Stone while on an official trip in Paris.

But Stone’s spokesperson, Susie Arons, was emphatic in her statement otherwise: “Just to clarify, Oliver Stone is not making a feature on Chavez. He will be putting together footage of Chavez that was not used in his [2009] documentary ‘South of the Border,’ for a short addendum to be released on the first anniversary of [Chavez’s] death.”

Arons added in an email to AFP: “It is not clear how the short extra will be distributed, but we will know later in the year.”

Chavez, a retired lieutenant colonel, led Venezuela for 14 years until his death on March 5 after a long battle with cancer. At the time, he had been reelected five months earlier to a third six-year term in office. Chavez was 58.

Stone, 66, has often praised the outspoken Chavez, whom he interviewed for the 2009 documentary, exploring the Venezuelan leader’s role in bottom-up change among allied nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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

Maduro said Stone will soon visit Venezuela for the premiere of a film project on “the history of American imperialism.”

The director, who describes his views as “progressive,” is known for politically-angled films that some critics dismiss as tendentious. On his website he calls some of his films “at deep odds with conventional myth.”

His movies include “Platoon” (the first in his Vietnam trilogy), “JFK,” “Natural Born Killers” and “W.” – an unflattering portrait of former US president George W. Bush. – Rappler.com

Oliver Stone photo by s_buckley from Shutterstock