This documentary "The young Honduran revolution" was made by German-Danish activist Johannes Wilm. While working for the revolutionary Nicaraguan government he snuck across the border to Honduras in early August to document the resistance movement in the neighboring Central American republic, after a military coup had overthrown Leftist president Manuel Zelaya on June 28th. By coincidence he documents how for the first time in nearly thirty years the majority of students rise up against the police in a battle of 3000 students fighting police on the campus of the Autonomous University of Honduras in Tegucigalpa on August 5th.
The documentary shows where the student leaders come from, what their analysis of the current situation is, what plans they have for changing it, and what perspective for the future they see both for them personally and for the country at large. It is 90 minutes long and it is made in Spanish with English subtitles.
This film turned out to be a useful look into what a section (the student section) of the organizing & fighting against the coup-makers looks like on the ground in Honduras. It's exciting to hear the student organizers, and the people working closely with them, identify as left revolutionaries and socialists, respectively. According to the film-maker, these students were politically trained by Nicaraguan Sandinistas (the film-maker is also on the left, from Germany/Denmark, but has been living in Nicaragua for the last 1.5 years working for the Ministry of Agriculture while studying for his doctorate in Anthropology, and traveled briefly to Tegucigalpa to film what turned out to be the beginning of serious student organizing & demonstrating against the coup-makers in Honduras). Being lucky enough to find himself in the middle of this organizing and demonstrating, and being able to film it, he is now touring with his film. This documentary has been used by the latin American radio network Puente Sur to be part of the mobilization effort in other Latin American countries and they have so far shown it in 12 Latin American countries.
What you'll see in the film is a small group of student organizers (FUR = Fuerza Universidad Revolucionaria) planning, rallying, then boldly taking their banner and ready-to-burn tires to the street in front of the University to block all traffic, in protest of the ousting of Zelaya from his seat as President (they say that even though Zelaya started Center-Right, what can a left movement do but support a leader who has taken such a left shift and be given the chance to demonstrate his willingness to follow through on newly-declared politics, plus he was democratically elected and the point is to restore democracy). When police show up hours later to move the student demonstrators and re-open the street, their removal tactics (gas & rubber bullets), and entrance onto the university campus w/their weapons & terror tactics causes the entire campus (including students who had until then looked on but abstained from participating in the demonstration) to erupt against the police and begin looting cafeteria storefronts (who they say are controlled by the same oligarchy that supports the coup). The next day, a campus assembly is held, with faculty speaking from the front to recognize the bravery of the student organizers from the day before, and calling them the new leaders of a youth revolutionary movement in Honduras, standing on the shoulders of those who lost their lives fighting for democracy in Honduras in the 80s.
The film [somewhat superficially] covers some carefully-negotiated sectarian tension between the FUR and another student group on the same campus the University Reform Front (FRU), the second of which seems a little more moderate. They were historically connected to the liberal party. But the day before FUR's action to occupy the street, when the Liberal Party's candidate was hosted at a forum on campus they were the ones organizing the protests outside. Both FUR and FRU critisized this candidate for not being willing to take a stand against the coup. The FRU organizers did allow FUR organizers to take the megaphone and make comments to the candidate about this. The day after, FUR organizers managed to block of the street in front of the university on the day of their demonstration, some FRU leaders showed up with bullhorns declaring this demonstration had been a "united student effort", which does not appear to be true based on the film-makers documenting of FUR's work the day before, going classroom to classroom (without FRU) to mobilize students to the demonstration).
The students had expected for 150 students to show up, and it ended up being 3000 and it was reported on by most mayor Spanish speaking news sources around the world. It is the first time for close to thirty years that this has happened in Honduras.
The film-maker also interviewed with some young Socialists in Tegucigalpa (one is a teacher) who are known popularly in Honduras as a group called "The Fools" (they've apparently been organizing politically since the late 90s, and who seem to have some degree of reach and respect in the community). It is not clear how much the "Fools" had to do with the student organizing that happened leading up to the demonstration that this film centers itself around, but they seem to be on an even sharper left edge (explaining their perpective of the necessity to maintain political & organizing independence from both the Right & Center-Right (ie Zelaya's) parties) than the students whose campus demonstration ended up being the center of this film.
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