Golpe in the green prison

28th of June 2009
05.00 a.m. Tegucigalpa, Honduras
A military commando invades the presidential house.

09.00 p.m. Milan, Europe
Simona Ventura greets her public, theme song of Celebrity Survivor.

08.00 a.m. Tegucigalpa
Hondurans take to the streets. There’re tanks and snipers, the first deaths.

9.00 a.m. Milan
“Studio Aperto” (Italian newscast)  interviews people from the Bergamo Association from all over the world, who wish good luck to the new golpist president originally from Bergamo.

06.00 a.m. Milan
Everybody to the sea, the summer begins.

08.00 a.m. Honduras
Everybody to the streets, the time of desaparecidos comes again.

On 23rd July, Zelaya, the president who suffered the coup d’état, called the people at the border with Nicaragua, we document the massive response of the people ‘s army, the first curfew and disappearances. Who’s behind the coup? “As always there are the gringos,” said Ramon, a young teacher, “Obama has a pretty face: it is the typical marketing in the United States.” “The 80’s were years of terror clandestine cemeteries, death squads and disappearances . In Honduras the 80s seem to be back! ” denounced the Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas, escaped the night of the coup d’état.
The interviews outline a country held hostage by an oligarchy, 16 families, an oligarchy that felt threatened by the democratic measures of President Zelaya, too friendly to Chavez, one of the most feared enemies of the United States. After the minimum wage, the micro-credit and the entrance in ‘Alba , Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America, not aligned with Washington’, the oligarchy do not fit, they felt threatened and implemented a bloody coup d’état. The testimonies describe the social situation of the country, the poorest third of’ Latin America, so as respondents, their mode of expression, define the emotions of the day immediately following the coup. Mixed emotions, anger and fear but also pride: “we have no weapons, but we have dignity.”

NOTE OF ARTISTIC INTENT

I am not one of those who love their job, I hate it. After working as a cameraman for a big Italian television production, the famous reality-show Celebrity Survivor, I decided to spend a few months in Central America, on an island as in the brochure. But something happened, my plans are changed, I didn’t choose whether to shoot or not, I started to shoot almost without knowing why. I found myself in the middle of the people who were protesting against the coup d’etat, which the media almost ignored. Therefore the need to explain this paradox. Without the mobile phone images, we would not know anything about the Iranian Green Wave or the revolt of the monks in Burma. The media denies us the possibility to see the world in its terminal madness.