Hugo Chavez(R) and Danny Glover
© AFP/File Timothy A ClaryCARACAS (AFP) - "It is Mr Glover who should be bringing dollars to Venezuela," the National Association of Film Makers and the Venezuelan Chamber of Film Producers told Glover in a letter published in the Tal Cual daily.
Earlier this month, industry sources announced that state-sponsored Villa del Cine (Film Town) would provide 18 of the 30 million dollars needed to produce Glover's film on Haitian independence hero Toussaint Louverture.
"The amount of money our government has secretly and surreptitiously assigned the project could fund 36 Venezuelan-made movies," the film groups told the co-star of "Lethal Weapon."
They also criticized Glover, 60, for using political contacts to secure the funding package without a bidding process, calling such methods "demoralizing and detrimental to future generations of Venezuelan moviemakers."
It sends a signal to young people "that you don't have to bid or compete to make movies, because it is better and faster to get political favors."
Glover, 60, has supported Chavez's political revolution since he was first elected in 1998, and backed the 2006 creation of Villa del Cine the anti-US Chavez regime said would go up against "the Hollywood film dictatorship."
Venezuelan Culture Minister Francisco Sesto defended the joint film project with Glover, saying in a published letter of his own: "The funds earmarked for this movie will be invested exclusively in Venezuela ... creating jobs and providing excellent experience for our national film industry."
He also called it "naive" to think the movie industry would be out of 18 million dollars, since the money did not come from Villa del Cine's operating funds but were part of an "additional credit."
"Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director is described as an epic film about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic.
Glover's production company is named Louverture Films.
©AFP