Please join American Short Fiction for a special screening of La Causa, presented by Austin-based novelist Alejandro Puyana, on Sunday, July 26, at 2:45 pm at Austin Film Society. In this 2020 documentary, enter one of the most dangerous facilities in Venezuela, PGV in Caracas, where the only guards stand outside—and inside, prisoners enforce their own code and deliver justice accordingly. You can watch the trailer here.
Stay after the film for a special discussion with Alejandro Puyana and filmmaker Andrés Figueredo. Austin’s beloved independent bookstore Alienated Majesty will be on-site selling Ale’s novel Freedom Is a Feast along with other associated titles.
Tickets are $14 and available for purchase here. (Special bonus: All ticket holders will receive the most recent issue of American Short Fiction at the event!)
ALEJANDRO PUYANA, who came to the United States from Venezuela at the age of twenty-six, received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The American Scholar, and elsewhere, and his story “Hands of Dirty Children” was reprinted in Best American Short Stories. His debut novel, Freedom Is a Feast, won the Westport Prize for Literature and was a finalist for the Literary Peace Prize.
ANDRÉS FIGUEREDO is a Venezuelan-American producer working between Caracas and the U.S., with a degree in Political Economy and Film Studies from Georgetown University. He produced his first narrative feature, Lost Soulz, in Austin, and wrote and directed La Causa, a documentary filmed over a decade inside the Venezuelan prison system. His producing work includes the Goya-nominated Dirección Opuesta, and his most recent production, Death Has No Master, premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, marking a rare Venezuelan return to the festival. Beyond film, he founded the record label Habeatat and the nonprofit Free Convict, through which he built recording studios inside Venezuelan prisons.
This screening is presented in collaboration with AFS Cinema, Austin’s only nonprofit art house theater. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Special thanks to our event partners Alienated Majesty and Cine Las Americas.
