Maybe it’s not that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez doesn’t like television but that he like movies. After all Hugo just approved almost $18 million to finance a movie about Toussaint Louverture, the leader of a 1791 slave uprising that helped make Haiti the first black nation to get European colonists out. Making the movie with Venezuela’s dinero is African-American Hollywood star and civil rights activist Danny Glover.

Of course some say that the move to bankroll this film is just Chavez attempting to use another medium for his anti-imperialist propaganda and many are criticizing Glover for his alliance with Chavez. But it’s not all about the money honey. Glover is an advisory board member of Telesur, an alternative Latin American network created by Chavez and the film, which will be shot in Venezuela, is being betted on to help boost the film industry in the nation.

Villa del Cine, a state-funded film and TV foundation, is also set to make a film based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez‘s novel about Simon Bolivar, The General in His Labyrinth (great book by the way).

Via / Time