The Cause (2019)
The Cause
”A look inside a dangerous Venezuelan prison run by inmates themselves.”
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Why watch this film?
Prisons are, at their foundation, places designed to keep those who have attempted or intend to break the law away from society, but rarely do we stop to think what their fate is behind bars. Worthy of an honorary mention in the 2020 DocuDays UA International Human Rights Film Festival, "La causa" is a human-focused documentary that exposes what is usually the norm behind the walls of a penitentiary—Venezuelan, in this case—the supplanting of the law by corruption towards ungovernability, with the prisoners in charge of their own prison microcosm. However, the documentary's interviews capture the human side of those who seek some kind of refuge and possibility of redemption in art, religion, and even politics in the midst of this limbo.
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Plot summary
Everyday life in the heavily overcrowded PGV prison in Venezuela is run by the inmates themselves. The Cause sheds light on this dangerous prison from the inside, and the corrupt penitentiary system around it. Current and former prisoners give a staggering account of life in this parallel society and the search for liberation within it.
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