THE
TRENCH OF HONOR
Massive premiere of the new version of “April: The Trench
of Honor”
By JORGE RAMOS
Hoy, nationwide newspaper/April 26/2005
The premiere of the documentary new version “April: The Trench of
Honor”, has become a historical event, with the participation of
approximately 7,000 people at the Independence park last Sunday night.
The transit of vehicles was closed between streets Arzobispo Nouel and
Mercedes for the 90 minutes feature presentation, written and directed
by René Fortunato and free of charge for the audience.
Giant screens were placed on both sides and from 9:00 P.M. images were
projected along with the narration of the events that marked the history
of the April war and the North American intervention in 1965.
(Click the photo icon on the left to see the pictures)
Previous to the film presentation, thousands of assistants saw, for the
first time, a special report under the title “40 Years After”,
with testimonials and deliberations of personalities and fighters such
as Héctor Lachapelle Díaz, Teresa Espaillat, Aníbal
de Peña, Manuel García Germán, Manuel Montes Arache,
Miguel Ángel Muñiz Arias, Claudio Caamaño, Brunilda
Amaral, Euclides Gutiérrez Félix, Jesús de la Rosa,
José Ignacio Noboa, Víctor Bisonó, Edmundo García
and Mario Hernández, among others.
The applause thundered the walls of the old building located on the El
Conde and Mercedes corner, when the images of Francisco Alberto Caamaño
Deñó, Juan Bosch, José Francisco Peña Gómez,
Fernández Domínguez and Manolo Tavarez Justo were shown.
But the booing of the multitude didn´t wait when the giant screens
projected the image of other figures of the Dominican political history
like Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, Joaquín Balaguer and Elías
Wessin y Wessin.
René Fortunato informed that next Thursday, April 28, the feature
film will be presented free of charge in Santiago, at the parking lot
of Gran Teatro Regional del Cibao.
SYNOPSIS
This documentary shows the events that took place in Santo Domingo, April
1965, with videos, pictures and music of the time.
The military revolt leaded by Coronel Caamaño Deñó
and the following North American military intervention, are addressed
in detail on this documentary entirely made of images and sounds of that
era.
“April: The Trench of Honor”, was acknowledged with the Pítirre
Award for best feature film of the Caribbean region during the II San
Juan Movie Festival , on October 1990, also winning the second finalist
award at the Latin American New Cinema Festival in La Habana, Cuba, on
December 1989.
BIG-TINY THINGS
-After a long wait, at 8:15 P.M., people applauded as the colored bars
showed on the big screen.
-When the Trujillo family appeared in the video, the audience screamed:
“They´re out”.
-A son of one of the soldiers punched a person who apparently made a negative
comment about the April Revolution.
-Others were thrown out of the first row by members of the National Police
for bad behavior and out of order criticism.
Once in a while you could hear a voice saying: “People, watch your
wallet”.
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