All the women are beautiful here. (singing)
Tonight, San Cristobal will crown Miss Tachira – supposedly the prettiest woman in this Western Venezuelan province.… but there’s a more tempting jewel here for these young entrants …
They know Osmel Sousa not as some selector of provincial beauty queens, but the maker of the world’s most beautiful women.
Tonight though, the dangers of living with a war torn neighbour are a world away.
This city of a quarter of a million is indulging in Venezuela’s national obsession; parading, cooing at, deifying its most beautiful.
It’s a dream I’ve had since I was a kid, and I’ve had to wait till I was old enough to be able to do this. Eighteen-year-old Angela Villa Mizar and countless young women like her want to be Miss Venezuela. It’s a long shot, but it could be her escape from work in her family’s fast food business.
I help my Mum selling empanadas. In the house we have a business and I have to help my Mum. We’re poor, we’re humble, but that’s where we’re at.
People here love the fact that you’re Miss Venezuela. People here are very much into it.
Eva Ekvall has just married to her male model boyfriend; she’s nineteen, and a Venezuelan superstar.
She’s just been through a dizzying year as Miss Venezuela
And now has a career in writing on the strength of her star status.
All this because at seventeen, on a whim, she wandered in to a modelling agency.
The moment I walked in, the manager of the Agency was there, and said ‘You have to meet Osmel Sousa’. The king of beauty kicked out one of his Miss Venezuela entrants to make way for Eva.
There were girls who had to lose twenty-five kilos. So, he just looked at me and said, ‘Yeh, you’re overweight, but it’s OK.’ Did he say how much you had to lose? Yeh, he saw me and he said ten kilos right away.
Osmel Sousa: I never studied drawing. I just did it naturally.
Osmel after show: Osmel Sousa is the Cuban born former artist and dressmaker turned king of Latin America’s physical beauty business.
As you’ll see he’s blunt, in fact to many offensive, and utterly focussed on his lifelong pursuit of perfect beauty.
Osmel Sousa: Since I was a child, I’ve been a illustrator, and I only ever drew women. I used to draw for publications. I specialised in female figures, for ten years, and then I never did again.
Osmel: with just one subject – and one goal... … the maximum of beauty, and that’s what I’m trying to do here now.
It’s the morning after Miss Tachira’s crowning.
Human body art inside castle Osmel and his lieutenants have finished breakfast at San Cristobal’s ‘Fantasy Castle’ hotel.
Osmel enters viewings & Four Girls enter viewings in bathing suits They’re beginning a seven-month mission in the lead-up to Miss Venezuela’s crowning night – to mould pretty girls into breathtaking women.
Osmel: How much do you weigh? Fifty-five, I think.
Women parade in front of Osmel. They’ve ordered Miss Tachira and her two runners up into bathing suits.
We’ll work that part a little bit, here, here, preferably everything; full body Lipo.
Osmel: You need to work her legs well. She needs to be in Caracas to do gymnastics.
Kaswan: I like her mouth.
Osmel: The thick lips look really nice.
Kaswan pointing defects to Osmel. Alongside Osmel, is his smile doctor; dental surgeon Moises Kaswan.
Kaswan to Osmel: The problem is when she smiles you can see the back of her mouth.
Dr. Moises Kaswan (Cosmetic Dentist): We change the colour. We change the shape and we do some surgery, gum surgery, especially to avoid those gummy smiles that are very opaque to the face y’know.
Tibisay Montilva (Quest entrant): They told me I had to do lots of exercise to tone my legs, and with my face, they said they need to fix my lower jaw, so that when I smile, it seems a little more natural. So my smile doesn’t look so fake.
New entrant comes in front of panel
Dr. Moises Kaswan: The smile is the frame of the face. We have to work very fast here you know. We have no time for braces y’know for orthodontic work.
Osmel: Smile. (smiles and laughs) Oh yeh; you’re going to have to cut it a little bit.
Kaswan pointing defects to Osmel: … and when push comes to shove, Dr. Smile does work quickly.
Dr. Moises Kaswan (Cosmetic Dentist): It depends y’know. Sometimes y’know, eight. Eight smiles a day? Eight smiles a day.
Women parade in front of Osmel … but these seven-month make-overs will go way beyond the mouth.
Osmel: It’s straight. It’s pretty. It’s straight. Do it just a little bit like this. Oh yeh, cut the bone. Oh, here. No, no, no. Only the point.
Women parade in front of Osmel Every time the former artist spots a line he doesn’t like, it’s as though he rubs it out and makes it right - plastic surgery where ever it’s needed.
Eva Ekvall: Yeh, only a couple of them practically don’t get surgery. Most have surgery? Yeh, there’s like twenty-six. Probably two of them don’t. In my year, there were two girls who didn’t get surgery. What about Eva Ekvall? I got surgery (laugh). What did you have? Ah, my breasts and my nose. Breast enlargement and … Yeh and my nose. What happened, what did they do to your nose? A very small detail. I had a very Jewish nose, which was very thick and a lot bigger here, but it was just a small detail really that I wanted to get done, so since it was free, I got it done for free anyway.
Osmel: How much does she weigh? Fifty-four.
Eva Ekvall (Miss Venezuela 2000): They all had the exact same nose and nobody looks good with the same nose, y’know, everybody has a different face structure. There’s a particular Miss Venezuela nose? Yeh, and I thought it was ridiculous. When I won, they wanted to change my nose (laugh) again, and I said no.
Osmel: Have you had your nose operated on? Yes. Who did it for you? Ernesto Sancha.
Osmel: The point is too artificial.
Eva Ekvall (Miss Venezuela 2000) :A lot of girls actually enter the Pageant to get the surgery done. Free surgery. Why not? Why not.
Osmel: And next week, you need to take care of all that, right.
Osmel Sousa :When I was an illustrator, I would draw a face and my client would come and say ‘Oh, I don’t like that nose’ and with an eraser, I would erase it, blow it off and draw it again. It’s the same as plastic surgery.
Osmel:Do a little work with her shoulders too.
Osmel Sousa has also asked Angela to join the seven-month training program.
Osmel:And what about her nose? No. OK. Her nose is fine.
Osmel: OK. All four of you stand there.
She wasn’t picked last night, but he likes her.
Osmel: Out of the four of you, even though you’ve been a model before, the only one showing energy (attitude) is she. OK. You’re going to come to Caracas, and I’m only going to tell you one thing, so that everything’s clear. (***edit***) You are going to be invited to stay only as long as you keep getting better.
Eva Ekvall : It’s very hard; it is. It’s very, very difficult.
Osmel: Last year I selected a girl, Miss Lara, and the first thing she did when she got to Caracas is get fat, and it never came off.
Eva Ekvall: Some girls would get very sick. They would um, they would diet so much and they would, they would really mess up their bodies with different things. They would take diuretics and they would do all kinds of things that in the end were very damaging to your body.
Osmel: This is a school, and you’re coming to prepare yourself; not to have fun. You’re not coming to Caracas to go to discos. You’re like an athlete getting ready for the Olympics.
Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996): When you are in that World, it’s not easy.
Alicia Machado: She knows all about international concepts of beauty and body shape.
Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996): Fifty-two girls were Miss Universe. I am one of them, at that’s incredible.
Alicia Machado wins title: Alicia Machado added to Osmel Sousa’s extraordinary record of winning international beauty pageants.

Venezuela’s fourth Miss Universe, not to mention five Miss World’s – all in the two decades of Osmel Sousa’s reign.
To get there she says she had to beat the work of the World’s best plastic surgeons.
Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996): They say ‘No’. The Miss Universe company, they say ‘No. Never I take girls with plastic surgeries.’ It’s not true. What’s the truth? The truth is maybe fifty girls have plastic surgeries. About half the girls in the Quest? Yes, in the Pageant. They had; of course.
Alicia Machado: And in Alicia’s case?
Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996): No, I don’t have it. I promise. No plastic surgery? No, no, not in my body. Only in my earers. How you say this? Ears. Ah, ears. Because I have something like this; like a Dumbo. I don’t like that. (chuckle)

Now twenty-four, Alicia conforms to the notion that thin is beautiful, and Venezuela rewards her. She stars in a locally produced soap opera.

Young girls watch on. The message is unmistakable. To be what Venezuelans call ‘a Miss’ is a ticket to wealth and adoration.
Alicia Machado shooting soapie The tragedy is just as unmistakable. So few fit Osmel Sousa’s utterly unyielding template for beauty.
Osmel Sousa: I’ve drawn so many women that I have the composition that is liked, in my head. It’s in my head like a computer.
Bridget Frick (Beauty student) :In Venezuela, everything it’s about appearance and the way you look, and it’s the way other people look at you.
Caracas Beauty School student Bridget Frick passes Osmel Sousa’s rule about being thin …
… but fails another test – height.
Bridget Frick I’m short. How tall are you? Um, one six five, in metres. I have no idea – I think I’m five six in inches. And that’s not tall enough to be Miss Venezuela? No. You have to be one seventy in metres, which is five seven.
Osmel Sousa: The problem with short women is that usually a short woman’s body is not harmonious.
And when he’s finished on size, Osmel Sousa applies his computer like limitations to race.
I asked him why so many white girls win Miss Venezuela in a country where so many women are dark skinned.

In a country that adores it’s beauty pageants, criticism is muted, but the head of Venezuela’s National Union of Black Women, Reina Arratia, does take issue with Osmel Sousa’s inflexibility.

The organisers of this event have a vision of what beauty is. In this case, beauty is a white woman, very thin with a profiled nose, long, straight hair with measurements of ninety, sixty, ninety and stands about one eighty, one ninety tall, but that’s simply not Venezuelan women.
Velasquez sequence from Movie.
Her skin colour and relative poverty didn’t prevent her making the Miss Venezuela Quest, though she didn’t win.
Dr. Roberto de Vries (Psychiatrist & Writer) RL The worldwide market that Osmel knows how to sniff out so well, and where the national taste is going, perhaps is more drawn to lighter skinned girls.

Venezuelan author on beauty, Roberto de Vries, argues Osmel Sousa is in fact meeting beauty concepts for markets like North America, Europe and Australia as much as Venezuela.
Sex billboards Though the raunchy billboards of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities suggest he’s on message for the local market anyway.
Dr. Roberto de Vries (Psychiatrist & Writer): Some of the most important people in the country and in the business see Osmel Sousa as the most influential person; the key to Venezuela’s success to recent years.
Osmel Sousa (Miss Venezuela Quest): The night of Miss Venezuela is the night that everyone waits for. It’s a social phenomenon.

Over seven months, the private company sinks a reported one hundred and thirty thousand dollars into the extraordinary development of each entrant.
Director on speaker to girls: Smile, smile, smile
Now the biggest show on Venezuelan television pays it back with profits to spare, and no one’s too worried about the archenemy of beauty pageants in other countries.
Director on speaker to girls:Big. Big.
Osmel Sousa cutaways … but do as I did and mention ‘feminism’ in the rarefied locker rooms of the good looking, and the King of Beauty turns ugly.
Osmel Sousa (Miss Venezuela Quest): In a group of feminists I wouldn’t even be able to find half a beautiful woman.
He’s not interested in arguments about women reduced to objects, and here his success allows him to scoff at those who make the arguments.
Osmel Sousa (Miss Venezuela Quest: Unfortunately, they’re all very ugly … and more. Don’t get involved with me. If you don’t want me to call you ugly. Don’t get involved with me.
Dr. Pacillo prepares for surgery

So where is the downside to Venezuela’s fascination with it’s good looks?
Plastic surgery in progress: Oddly, we found one in the very place Sousa style breasts, cheeks and noses are fashioned.
Dr Bruno Pacillo di Ruggiero (Plastic Surgeon): It’s very common for me to fix other doctors’ mistakes. Very common.
Pictures of ‘his work’ (quest winners) and trophies inside Bruno Pacillo’s surgeries. Bruno Pacillo’s waiting room is a shrine to the beautiful who’ve benefited from his twenty-seven years as a plastic surgeon.
Today though, he’s operating to patch an unqualified doctor’s hatchet job on Edith Silva.
Edith Silva (Surgery victim): It was like boom, boom; like going to the hairdresser.
Plastic surgery in progress . When the thirty-year-old complained of pain and a belt like scar left after fat removal from her waist, her supposed plastic surgeon changed the subject.
Edith Silva (Surgery victim) RL : – begins to cry He said ‘your breasts are a little bit droopy. We’re going to make them pretty for you.’ I went ahead and got the surgery done. What do you think about that? I got my breasts done (starts to cry) and it was worse.
Dr Bruno Pacillo di Ruggiero (Plastic Surgeon): This implant had been placed behind her pectoral muscle. In my entire life, I’ve never done that. I’ve never even seen it. It’s supposed to be in front of the muscle and behind the mammary gland.
Edith Silva - The victim of a surgeon incapable of implanting two breasts in the same way …
Edith Silva (Surgery victim) RL: - crying. I had a lot of pain from the beginning. This breast; the right breast.
Edith Silva will never recover the body she had, let alone the one she wanted.
Dr. Pacillo says fake surgeons are tragically common, catering to the eighty percent of Venezuelans who are poor, but feel that national demand for beauty.
Dr Bruno Pacillo di Ruggiero (Plastic Surgeon): There are lots of problems here that aren’t publicised. I had to deal with twenty-five cases from the city of Maracaibo of a supposed plastic surgeon who did facial surgeries, and they were disastrous. Their faces got some sort of gangrene and their eyes leaked pus. I only operated on three of them because it was impossible; the damage was so bad.
Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996) LR: It’s not easy to be ugly in this country. It’s not easy.
Osmel Sousa (Miss Venezuela Quest) LR: It’s been many years since I’ve drawn.
Osmel: We offered Venezuela’s sketch artist turned queen maker a pad and pencil to show us his ideal woman.
Osmel Sousa (Miss Venezuela Quest) LR: The lips are very important. Big lips? Preferably, yes (chuckle).
Osmel drawing Is Osmel Sousa wrong to be so rigid in his view of beauty?
Osmel Sousa: Lots of hair? Yes, lots. Any particular colour hair? No.
Osmel: Or just more perceptive and blunt about lines that follow some universal code of good looks?
Osmel Sousa: The most beautiful woman in the World. (laugh)