Asdrúbal Meléndez

Acting

Asdrúbal Meléndez

Born

1935-11-01 (90)

Place of birth

Falcón, Venezuela

Known for

Acting

Credits

38 titles

A schoolteacher, calligrapher, and theater, film, and television actor, he has an interest in other disciplines such as poetry, sculpture, and painting. He studied art at renowned institutions in the country and sculpture in Prague, Czech Republic. His artistic work can be seen in more than 60 feature films, the first of which was El cine soy yo (1977) by Luis Armando Roche. He has also worked as a set designer for various theatrical productions and Venezuelan films. As a poet, he has an important body of work published in magazines and newspapers.

Known for

Portable Country poster
7.0

Portable Country is a classical Venezuelan film about the urban guerrilla. Based on the novel of the same name, written by Adriano González León, the film centers on Andrés Barazarte, a disillusioned man from a wealthy landowning family, who grapples with his personal and political identity in the midst of Venezuela's tumultuous social changes and engages in the guerrilla. He reflects on his life, his family's decline, and the broader struggle for power in a country torn between tradition and revolution.The story unfolds as Andrés is tasked with transporting a mysterious package. This journey becomes a metaphor for his search for meaning and a confrontation with his family’s, and his country's, violent past. His recollections weave together with present events, creating a complex tapestry of memory and history.

Portable Country

1979

Manoa poster
7.0

The intent of novice director Solveig Hoogesteijn to make a drama about two Venezuelans from opposite sides of the economic and social tracks wobbles and weakens in the telling. Although the two compatriots both live in the capital, Caracas, and both love music, they have a need to go out into the rest of the country and discover their roots. As big-city dwellers, they are limited in their perspectives, though this excursion into other areas of Venezuela may prove more illuminating to them than to a foreign audience.

Manoa

1980

The Secret poster
9.0

Gaspar Urbieta works as a typographer in Maracaibo. The National Guard convinces him to infiltrate an organization of Colombian gold smugglers. Gaspar will experience situations of fear, humour, intrigue and romance with a beautiful and enigmatic blonde. His secret will be so incredible that if he told it, no one would believe it!

The Secret

1988

Fiebre poster
9.0

Vidal Rojas, an opponent of the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, after failing in a subversive attempt and suffering a romantic disappointment, decides to enlist in the revolutionary groups in the interior of the country.

Fiebre

1976

Una Mirada al Mar poster
3.8

Rufino, a man of 71, is widowed and decides to return to the village where he met his wife. There is reunited with his landscapes and his friend Gaspar, a painter who has taken over a little orphan girl named Ana eight-year-E, Rufino who will be forced to remain under the same roof, despite its hostile coexistence . The loneliness of these characters are facing, beginning strokes to a new way to overcome abandonment.

Una Mirada al Mar

2011

Oriana poster
5.7

A young girl is sent to a Venezuelan hacienda, where she learns about the life of her reclusive aunt, Oriana.

Oriana

1985

Film credits

2020s · 3 titles

2010s · 5 titles

Una Mirada al Mar poster
3.8

Rufino, a man of 71, is widowed and decides to return to the village where he met his wife. There is reunited with his landscapes and his friend Gaspar, a painter who has taken over a little orphan girl named Ana eight-year-E, Rufino who will be forced to remain under the same roof, despite its hostile coexistence . The loneliness of these characters are facing, beginning strokes to a new way to overcome abandonment.

Una Mirada al Mar

2011

Yotama se va volando poster
5.0

During Christmas time in Caracas, a woman (Yotama) holds up a restaurant. She takes three persons (Emilio, Manuel and Lucia) hostage in their apartment. Day by day Emilio, an old musician and Yotama become friends. Yotama's small daughter, Victoria, is brought into the apartment. Emilio dies and the rest of the three persons become united in a common bond of humanity.

Yotama se va volando

2013

Zamora, tierra y hombres libres poster
NR

Venezuela, the mid-nineteenth century. The polarization between liberals and conservatives marked the political agenda. Inequalities of colonial society kept farmers and slaves under the yoke of the oligarchy. Ezequiel Zamora mobilized by deep ideals of liberty is leading a fight to try to erase social inequalities and distribute land equitably.

Zamora, tierra y hombres libres

2010

Cabrujas en el país del disimulo poster
NR

Beginning with his childhood and covering the many facets that characterized his intellectual universe, this documentary details the different aspects of the most important venezuelan writer of the 60s, 70s and 80s: José Ignacio Cabrujas.

Cabrujas en el país del disimulo

2017

El Silbón poster
2.0

Short film based on the Venezuelan folkloric story: The Whistler (El SIlbón)

El Silbón

2011

2000s · 3 titles

1990s · 4 titles

1980s · 10 titles

Manoa poster
7.0

The intent of novice director Solveig Hoogesteijn to make a drama about two Venezuelans from opposite sides of the economic and social tracks wobbles and weakens in the telling. Although the two compatriots both live in the capital, Caracas, and both love music, they have a need to go out into the rest of the country and discover their roots. As big-city dwellers, they are limited in their perspectives, though this excursion into other areas of Venezuela may prove more illuminating to them than to a foreign audience.

Manoa

1980

The Secret poster
9.0

Gaspar Urbieta works as a typographer in Maracaibo. The National Guard convinces him to infiltrate an organization of Colombian gold smugglers. Gaspar will experience situations of fear, humour, intrigue and romance with a beautiful and enigmatic blonde. His secret will be so incredible that if he told it, no one would believe it!

The Secret

1988

Oriana poster
5.7

A young girl is sent to a Venezuelan hacienda, where she learns about the life of her reclusive aunt, Oriana.

Oriana

1985

¡Diles que no me maten! poster
10.0

A young peasant farmer has a feud with a heartless landowner which results in the landowner killing the peasant's cattle which result in the peasant killing the landowner which for the man goes in to hiding for more than 40 years, hounded by the murdered landowner's son obsessed with finding his father's killer.

¡Diles que no me maten!

1984

La Matanza de Santa Bárbara poster
8.0

The confrontation between two families over possession of the land gradually becomes a great slaughter where almost all the members of one the sides dies. One of the survivor will take justice into his own hands.

La Matanza de Santa Bárbara

1986

Cóctel de Camarones. En el Día de la Secretaria poster
7.0

In Secretaries Day, either you get laid or you get paid.

Cóctel de Camarones. En el Día de la Secretaria

1984

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings poster
5.3

An elderly man with wings is blown off course during a tropical storm in this symbolic fantasy. The Old Man lands near a Caribbean island where a poor family gives him shelter in a chicken coop. Father Gonzaga is the skeptical priest who rushes to damn the creature. Soon the Old Man is the subject of curiosity seekers as Elisinda and Pelayo start charging admission. A traveling carnival of human oddities camps near the Old Man as people flock to see the show. The Old Man is reduced to being an unwanted pet, and after six years, he mends his wings and flies away. Nudity, simulated sex with a spider woman, and the ugliness of human exploitation definitely put this fantasy in a category not for children.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

1988

The Compass Rose poster
4.6

Exiled Chilean director Patricio Guzmán filmed in Cuba and in Venezuela to create this controversial statement on the creation and survival of Latin American culture from the late-15th century to the present. For some viewers, the film will be superficially symbolic and rhetorical, for others, it will be a strong and personal vision of several centuries of history.

The Compass Rose

1983

The Wedding poster
6.8

A politically charged film, where a series of archetypal characters are presented.

The Wedding

1982

El iluminado poster
10.0

Ignacio is known as El Iluminado de la Esmeralda (The Enlightened One of the Emerald) for his healing powers. Urged by the eviction of the house where he lives, he decides to charge for his services with an illusionist. What he ends up with is being mistreated and taken advantage of by others, even ending up in jail. After regaining his freedom, he goes mad.

El iluminado

1984

1970s · 12 titles

Portable Country poster
7.0

Portable Country is a classical Venezuelan film about the urban guerrilla. Based on the novel of the same name, written by Adriano González León, the film centers on Andrés Barazarte, a disillusioned man from a wealthy landowning family, who grapples with his personal and political identity in the midst of Venezuela's tumultuous social changes and engages in the guerrilla. He reflects on his life, his family's decline, and the broader struggle for power in a country torn between tradition and revolution.The story unfolds as Andrés is tasked with transporting a mysterious package. This journey becomes a metaphor for his search for meaning and a confrontation with his family’s, and his country's, violent past. His recollections weave together with present events, creating a complex tapestry of memory and history.

Portable Country

1979

Fiebre poster
9.0

Vidal Rojas, an opponent of the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, after failing in a subversive attempt and suffering a romantic disappointment, decides to enlist in the revolutionary groups in the interior of the country.

Fiebre

1976

Se llamaba SN poster
8.0

As José Abreu “Guanipa” is transferred with a group of prisoners to the Guasina camp in the Orinoco Delta, he recalls the torture he was subjected to by SN (National Security) henchmen in order to obtain information about the resistance. In Guasina, the prisoners are subjected to forced labor while they plan their escape. Guanipa is released after signing the bond and the rest of his companions remain in the camp.

Se llamaba SN

1977

Manuel poster
9.5

Directed by Alfredo Anzola, Manuel (1979) is a Venezuelan drama that explores themes of love, faith, and resistance. The story follows Aparicio and his wife, Alma Rosa, as they welcome a new priest, Manuel, to their coastal village. As Manuel becomes acquainted with the community, he discovers that the village is slated for demolition to make way for a tourist development. Deeply moved by the villagers' plight, Manuel joins the local fishermen in their struggle to defend their land. During this time, he also finds himself drawn to Alma Rosa, leading to personal and moral dilemmas. The developers, aware of Manuel's growing influence and his feelings for Alma Rosa, begin to monitor his actions closely. The film delves into the complexities of human relationships and the fight against displacement.

Manuel

1979

The Moving-Picture Man poster
7.3

Happy fun times with a little crew of people driving around to backwater villages to show movies in places where the locals don't get much culture. But all good things come to an end...

The Moving-Picture Man

1977

La bomba poster
9.0

Venezuelan comedy by Julio César Mármol, featuring Joselo.

La bomba

1975

El crimen del penalista poster
9.0

Based on the real story of the murder of Venezuelan lawyer Ramón Carmona Vásquez by a paramilitary group. Based on the book Grupo Táctico Operacional GATO by Alexis Rosas.

El crimen del penalista

1979

Carmen poster
5.5

Carmen is a beautiful woman working in a business that is dedicated to smuggling. One day, Carmen fights and hurts to a smuggler woman, so a sergeant in the National Guard, José Navarro, stops detain her. In doing so he also falls in love with her, but jealousy will destroy his passion.

Carmen

1978

Chronicle of a Latin American Subversive poster
6.5

1964, in a Latin American country, a journalist is head of an armed liberation movement that decides to initiate radical actions. His second in command, a farmer, and the other members of the group will kidnap a north american colonel stationed in Venezuela to force his government to suspend the execution of the vietnamese Nguyen Van Troi, accused of trying to assassinate the American Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

Chronicle of a Latin American Subversive

1974

The Company Forgives a Moment of Madness poster
7.5

A skilled worker has a sudden nervous breakdown at the company for which he has been working for the last 20 years. He attacks the machines and smashes the windows. The company decides to have him undergo treatment with a well-known young psychiatrist. She will try to bring light the reasons for his behavior so he can adapt himself to his work once again.

The Company Forgives a Moment of Madness

1978

El circo mágico poster
NR

A young man visits the grave of his lover.

El circo mágico

1975

Sacred and Obscene poster
8.0

Pedro Zamora (Miguelangel Landa) is a former guerrilla who returns to Caracas and moves to a pension as a tenant. Despite appearances, he has come to fulfill a secret mission to its ultimate consequences.

Sacred and Obscene

1975