Marcelo Romo

Acting

Marcelo Romo

Born 1941-04-23 · Santiago, Chile

Marcelo Romo (Santiago, April 23, 1941 – January 23, 2018) was a renowned Chilean actor of film, theater, and television. Trained at the University of Chile’s School of Theater, he became one of the leading figures of Chilean acting from the 1960s onward. He made his film debut in El Chacal de Nahueltoro (1969) by Miguel Littín, playing a journalist —a landmark in Chilean cinema that marked the beginning of a prolific film career spanning over thirty titles. During the Pinochet dictatorship, Romo went into exile in Venezuela, where he continued his career in film, participating in movies such as La máxima felicidad (1982) and Señora Bolero (1991), as well as in theater, and television, later working also in Mexico and Colombia. He returned to Chile in the 1990s and became a familiar face in popular TV series such as Rojo y Miel, Sucupira, Estúpido Cupido, and Pecadores (his last television appearance, in 2003). A versatile and socially committed performer, Romo was admired for the emotional depth of his characters and his dedication to the arts. He spent his final years away from the public eye due to Alzheimer’s disease and passed away in Santiago in 2018, aged 76.

Acting credits

The Witnesses poster
6.5

This stark Chilean melodrama concerns itself with the plight of slum dwellers living outside Santiago. For many years they have, with great difficulty, been faithfully paying small sums to a real estate man. This man has said that by doing so they can obtain title to the miniscule plots of land their houses stand on. In fact, he has been swindling them and does not even own the land he has been "selling." One of the aggrieved slum dwellers confronts him about this while he is visiting the slum, and the real estate agent shoots him before everyone's eyes. The question confronting these witnesses is whether testifying against this monster will make their lives even more precarious.

The Witnesses

1971

Señora Bolero poster
9.0

After the suicide of her son, Amanda starts to question her life and the decisions she made when she was young. This movie take us back to Venezuela in the 1950s through the memories of Amanda Contreras, between of the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez.

Señora Bolero

1991

Canaguaro poster
8.0

The murder of popular leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán unleashes violence in the Colombian countryside. Guerrillas are formed that, behind the facade of partisan struggle, also fight for control of the land. Canaguaro commands one of these groups. Their story is the same as that of thousands of Colombians, survivors of attacks on their families. We learn about his life and that of his friends through the journey in search of weapons that the party has promised them and that will never be delivered to them. They are called to order and reconciliation and, finally, murdered.

Canaguaro

1981

Morituri poster
8.0

An eccentric millionaire gives a party for his birthday. With his friends, gamblers and collectors , they play games in their own way. One of them, a woman, suggests this: since they're all gamblers they should play a fortune on the life of one of them.

Morituri

1984

Enough Praying poster
7.5

Many socially-concerned priests in Catholic Latin America have at some time left their parish churches to go and work in the fields and factories of the poor. Such priests, usually adherents of "liberation theology," are called "worker-priests." This Chilean film tells the story of how one man became a "worker-priest" and won the trust of the poor.

Enough Praying

1972

La máxima felicidad poster
9.0

Two men and a woman are about to experience living as a threesome, this process brings out of them their fears, some moral barriers must be dismantled before the complex process of understanding and accepting each other can succeed.

La máxima felicidad

1982

The First Year poster
7.3

The documentary narrates the events that took place during the first year of the Unidad Popular government, in chronological order.

The First Year

1972

Mariposas S.A. poster
6.5

The story of seven prostitutes traveling in a truck, town to town, selling their show in local festivities inside an old circus tent. The authorities demand bribes in order to keep the order in town.

Mariposas S.A.

1986

The Suns of Easter Island poster
6.4

Six people find a mysterious mark in the center of their left hand and all independently go to Easter Island in hopes to uncover the mystery.

The Suns of Easter Island

1972

No artwork available
NR

A woman's new house hides a sinister secret. Part of ITV Playhouse-S13E02

The Perfect House

1981

Jackal of Nahueltoro poster
6.8

Based on an actual murder case that ignited a furious debate over the death penalty in Chile in 1960, this experimental social drama portrays the life and death of an illiterate peasant who, while drunk, murdered the woman with whom he had a relationship and her five children.

Jackal of Nahueltoro

1970

No artwork available
NR

A documentary about the consequences of consuming alcohol and how it works as a weapon of the bourgeoisie to appease the thirst of the people.

Entre ponerle y no ponerle...

1971

Los náufragos poster
4.4

After 20 years of exile, Aron returns to Chile to find out who he is. He asks questions, not only of those who stayed behind but also of himself, examining his relationship with his past and his own memory. The people who stayed lived through 20 years of dictatorship. They were either victims or executioners. Amidst this wreckage, Aron wonders what name his brother is using now, where his father is... Can he, in Isol's arms and through her love, find his way again ? What future awaits him? Like Mola the torturer, he has returned from an impossible journey, and Aron knows that each man is his own executioner. Shipwreck and resurrection are the two facets of a complex truth.

Los náufragos

1994

Voto + Fusil poster
6.4

The political evolution in Chile seeing from three different times: 1937, 1947 and 1970. A film that shows how a revolution cannot be accomplished by electoral means, and how the wealthy class will always attempt to destroy that revolution, with the help of the armed forces, as soon as their privileges are threatened.

Voto + Fusil

1971

Dear Comrades poster
9.0

Directed by Pablo de la Barra, Queridos compañeros (1977) is a Chilean-Venezuelan political drama that delves into the fervent revolutionary movements of the late 1960s. The film follows a group of young radical leftists that struggle to change the Chilean political status quo. The production of Queridos compañeros faced significant challenges, since filming started in 1973 but was abruptly halted due to the military coup in Chile that year. Director Pablo de la Barra managed to save the film's footage but lost the original audio tracks. In exile in Venezuela, he reconstructed the sound with the help of the original actors, completing the film in 1977. The film offers a poignant reflection on the aspirations and struggles of a generation striving for systemic change, providing insight into the political dynamics of Chile during a tumultuous period.

Dear Comrades

1977

No artwork available
6.0

In this film the director's recurring concerns return: the divisions in the Chilean left, and its contradictions between what the director calls the "traditional" and the "revolutionary" left. The problem is exposed through the doubts and obsessions of a strange police chief who cannot establish the limits between critical behavior and militant responsibility.

Metamorphosis of the Chief of the Political Police

1973

La hora del tigre poster
10.0

Humberto and Atilio, two elderly men confined in a nursing home, decide to flee when they see the arrival of some ballot boxes through the window, which makes them assume that their lives are in danger. The escape causes the mobilization of an entire military strategic team while the two elderly men and Daniel, an employee of the nursing home, wander around the roads of the area. In the end, they are unexpectedly armed and confront the “enemy”.

La hora del tigre

1985

Behind the camera