It Would Be Night in Caracas

When society begins breaking down, the chaos unleashed often affects all aspects of everyday life, including everything from the availability of food and medicine to the collapse of basic law and order to the disappearance of common decency and civility. Under conditions like this, it truly feels like the world is falling apart, transforming into a quintessential hell on earth. So it was in Venezuela in 2017, when the government of President Nicolás Maduro began clashing with opposition groups in a series of violent protests across the country, especially in the streets of its capital and largest city, Caracas. The general public quickly got caught in the crossfire of this madness, the kind of fate that befalls 28-year-old writer-editor Adelaida (Natalia Reyes), for whom every day becomes a struggle to survive. Having just lost her mother to cancer and her apartment in a brazen takeover by a radical militia group, Adelaida’s essentially left homeless. And, when she inadvertently becomes caught in the middle of a nighttime street fight between rival factions, she’s brusquely whisked away (ironically to safety) by a seemingly masked thug, Santiago (Moisés Angola), the militant (and believed-missing) brother of one of her friends. Together they take refuge in the apartment of Adelaida’s neighbor, Aurora (Blanca Vanessa Núñez), who recently succumbed to the effects of a chronic health condition. However, as tragic as Aurora’s death might have been, it may also turn out to be Adelaida’s salvation: As a Spanish national living in Caracas, Aurora had been planning to return home to escape the escalating violence in Venezuela, with a plane ticket and travel papers already in hand – items that Adelaida now seeks to use to facilitate her own exit by assuming her deceased friend’s identity. It’s an ambitious undertaking filled with challenges despite having the apparent means to make it happen. Adelaida’s story is thus reminiscent of the experience of Australian journalist Guy...