From DW Documentary.
A filmmaker’s firsthand experience of the US attacks on Venezuela. Her country is at the center of geopolitics—but ordinary people are powerless. A view from Caracas, caught between hope and resignation.
In December 2025, the death of her stepfather Nelson brought documentary filmmaker Anabel Rodríguez Ríos home to Venezuela, to mourn with her mother. The country is economically devastated, and the public healthcare system is in crisis. Medical treatment might have helped save her stepfather’s life. But it was too expensive.
Meanwhile, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, the US is stationing warships. US President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela’s deposed leader Nicolás Maduro with war, accusing him of "narco-terrorism.” In September 2025, the United States begins ordering strikes on Venezuelan boats without an international legal mandate; the claim is that these are boats belong to drug traffickers. More than 100 people have been killed in these strikes so far.
On the night of 3 January 2026, Anabel Rodríguez Ríos is awakened by bombs—the US has launched a strike on Venezuela. Maduro and his wife are captured and taken to the US, where they are almost immediately indicted.
Shot in real time and told from a first-person perspective, Notes from Caracas shows the effects of global geopolitical events on everyday life. While US aircrafts bomb boats in the Caribbean and Venezuela is gripped by uncertainty, on New Year’s Eve the streets of Caracas are filled with music and dancing. At the same time, American corporations are already dividing up Venezuela’s wealth—the oil that the United States is now asserting control over.
As she moves through the city, the filmmaker encounters human rights activists, relatives of political prisoners, and survivors of torture. They report on the practice of enforced disappearances and tell of beatings and arbitrary arrests in a system designed to intimidate and silence those who dissent. In Anabel’s own family, conversations at home reflect a society marked by polarization, fear, and exhaustion.
Blending personal experience, political power plays and global interests, Notes from Caracas is an intimate portrait of Venezuela at a turning point—told from an insider perspective.
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