Venezuela's new wave of cinema focuses on gay love and life - and it's subsidised by the revolution

A new wave of cinema is emerging from the chaos and violence of modern Venezuela, focusing on highly personal tales of gay love affairs and little boys who want to wear party dresses.

Following the tradition of 1990s gay Cuban cinema, Venezuelan directors are finding creative ways to produce films that explore and criticise society despite increasing government control of TV and other media. And they're doing it with state funding.

The debut feature From Afar, by a little-known Venezuelan director, won top honours at last month's Venice Film Festival, one of the industry's top events. The film is about an affair between a wealthy middle-aged man and a teenage hustler set against a background of poverty and violence.

Like the prize-winning film Bad Hair, about a poor Venezuelan boy grappling with his sexual identity, and My Straight Son, in which a teenager goes to live with his gay father, From Afar was made possible by government grants.

Venezuela has never had a strong filmmaking tradition, but the South American country's 16-year-old socialist revolution has pushed to create a state-sponsored national cinema like the ones that produced Cuban and Soviet classics.

The National Centre for Cinematography funds projects and sends filmmakers abroad to learn about filmmaking. It also supports a film school run by President Nicolas Maduro's son. The number of films produced in Venezuela has quadrupled since 2005 to about 20 a year, still far short of the average of 50 produced in Argentina.