The first episode of a new travel documentary on Venezuela, filmed by former Monty Python member Michael Palin, has revealed details of a tense encounter between the film crew and armed forces loyal to President Nicolás Maduro.
Palin and his team were detained for seven hours by military intelligence services while preparing to film a statue of the late President Hugo Chávez, a monument gifted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as The New Statestman explains. Nine or ten armed men confronted the group, confiscating their passports, cameras, and equipment, before interrogating and photographing them. "It wasn't very funny then," Palin said during a Q&A reported by the news site.
The incident took place in Sabaneta, Chávez's birthplace in Barinas state, where Palin described being approached by militia members who accused the crew of filming without permission. According to Palin, the situation shifted when the men recognized his past Monty Python work after finding the well-known "fish-slapping dance" on YouTube. "Their rifles shook with joy," he recalled, noting the moment defused the standoff.
The program, Michael Palin in Venezuela, follows earlier series in which the 82-year-old filmmaker traveled to North Korea, Iraq, and Nigeria. Like those, it portrays a nation in political crisis, where Maduro's image is omnipresent on television, in print, and even in a comic strip titled Super Bigote. The documentary also shows how daily life is shaped by poverty, repression, and mass migration.
In one segment, Palin meets a three-year-old boy in Petare, a Caracas neighborhood, whose mother left him behind when she migrated through the Darién Gap to reach the United States. In another, he visits members of the Pemon indigenous community affected by illegal gold mining that has devastated their environment.
Palin combines these accounts with moments of levity, including standing behind a waterfall and reflecting, "I'm 81, I shouldn't be here, I should be in bed!" The series also includes a risky helicopter landing at Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall.
The documentary comes as tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela have intensified in the past few weeks. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump ordered strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug vessels, an escalation that has further strained relations.
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