Pepe Mujica - Lessons from the Flowerbed

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The nearly 80-year-old José “Pepe” Mujica is known as the poorest president on earth: he gives away 70 percent of his income. In the 1970s, he fought as a guerrilla against the dictatorial regime in Uruguay, and he has been the charismatic president of this South American country since 2010. Lessons from the Flowerbed followsMujica and his wife for several years. Interviews with the president are interwoven with archive footage and scenes from everyday political life, in which he is fighting for the legalization of marijuana among other things. The documentary is Heidi Specogna’s follow-up to Tupamaros (co-directed with Rainer Hofmann), about the guerrilla movement in which Mujica fought against poverty without shunning the use of violence. Mujica has put down his weapons long since, and his main weapon now is the spoken word. This is evident from the speeches in which he entrances his audience every time. But how do his grand ideals compare to the unruly political reality? Sitting in his chair in the garden of his small farm, Mujica looks at ease as he explains how capitalism is rooted in our culture and causes us to lose sight of the human dimension. Much less pleasant is when he is in his vast office in Montevideo, where he looks a lot wearier.