Román Chalbaud

Directing

Román Chalbaud

Born 1931-10-10 · Mérida, Venezuela

Román Chalbaud was born on October 10, 1931 in Mérida, Venezuela. He is a director and writer, known for Pandemonium, la capital del infierno (1997), El pez que fuma (1977) and La quema de Judas (1974).

Acting credits

Infieles poster
6.1

Luisa cheats on Guillermo with Sebastian, who cheats on Ximena. When Luisa goes missing after both couples return from a double date night, the whole house of cards starts tumbling down.

Infieles

2019

No artwork available
NR

During a military uprising known as “El Porteñazo”, a priest is photographed while trying to help a soldier wounded in combat. The photo travels the world and is awarded the most important prizes in photojournalism, such as the Pulitzer Prize and the World Press. Throughout this documentary, photographers, editors and witnesses reveal various aspects surrounding that image: who is the priest, who was its author, the events that surrounded the photographic event, what was its political role and what said image represents in the history of Venezuelan journalism. Additionally, it allows the presentation of other photographs, some unpublished, that Rondón managed to capture in those difficult moments.

Final Absolution: History of a Photograph

2010

Una noche oriental poster
10.0

Benito Zamora, a conspirator against the Perezjimenista government, uses Leonor Montes, a young vedette friend of a colonel, to find information. National Security is pursuing Benito to dismantle the plot.

Una noche oriental

1986

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

Ver a Hilda Vera poster
NR

A living room, two video cameras, an armchair, two televisions and a mirror: domestic daily life in which colleagues, family and friends come together to decipher the life, personality and artistic trajectory of one of the most important actresses of Venezuelan Cinema: Hilda Vera

Ver a Hilda Vera

1998

Cine Invisible poster
NR

A thesis on the history, the successes and failures of Venezuelan and Latin American cinema as a whole; demonstrating how little interaction there is between Ibero-American cinema

Cine Invisible

2023

Un País Llamado El Pez que Fuma poster
NR

Documentary that has unpublished testimonies from Román Chalbaud, director of El pez que fuma, an emblematic Venezuelan film from the 1970s; as well as funny conversations with the actors, 40 years after the premiere of the film. Made from a solid video-newspaper investigation, the film has unpublished stills and behind-the-scenes scenes, as well as incredible technical anecdotes, explanations about the montage and the rehearsal of scenes.

Un País Llamado El Pez que Fuma

2021

Los años del miedo poster
8.0

The political leader Alberto Carnevali, secretly returns to his country to plot against the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. The Intense subversive struggle brings the torture of many of his comrades.

Los años del miedo

1987

Behind the camera

Días de poder poster
NR

The film tells the story of Fernando Quintero (Gustavo Camacho), revolutionary leader who, after the fall of the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez, ascends to power, betraying their ideals to become an accomplice of repression against whom he fought.

Días de poder

2011

Días de poder poster
NR

The film tells the story of Fernando Quintero (Gustavo Camacho), revolutionary leader who, after the fall of the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez, ascends to power, betraying their ideals to become an accomplice of repression against whom he fought.

Días de poder

2011

No artwork available
9.0

Joseph is a sailor who returns to his aunt's home after 14 years at sea, there he will be involved in the process of African colonialism signing a contract to travel to Congo captaining a ship called Florida that is shipwrecked as soon as it reaches Congo forcing them to walk the Congolese forest in the heart of darkness

El Corazón de las Tinieblas

1990

Manon poster
7.0

During a bus ride through the Andes, two seminarians encounter with a woman named Manon. Immediately, one of them falls in love and the attraction is mutual, so they decide to flee to capital city to start a new life. But the love of Manon ambitious drags this man to leave his vocation and commit criminal acts to maintain a life of luxury and extravagance.

Manon

1986

Manon poster
7.0

During a bus ride through the Andes, two seminarians encounter with a woman named Manon. Immediately, one of them falls in love and the attraction is mutual, so they decide to flee to capital city to start a new life. But the love of Manon ambitious drags this man to leave his vocation and commit criminal acts to maintain a life of luxury and extravagance.

Manon

1986

La Oveja Negra poster
8.0

A group of thieves and outcasts are living in a big abandoned movie theater where they have created a very friendly and very particular universe. The police will use all its resources to violate their space, but again and again fail in their attempts.

La Oveja Negra

1987

La Oveja Negra poster
8.0

A group of thieves and outcasts are living in a big abandoned movie theater where they have created a very friendly and very particular universe. The police will use all its resources to violate their space, but again and again fail in their attempts.

La Oveja Negra

1987

La planta insolente poster
NR

The film reproduces the historical moment when Cipriano Castro, then president of Venezuela, proclaimed: "The insolent plant of the foreigner has desecrated the sacred soil of the fatherland!" While the coasts were invaded by imperial forces in 1902.

La planta insolente

2017

No artwork available
NR

Venezuelan horror television movie from 1982.

La noche del sapo

1982

Cuchillos de fuego poster
5.0

Version of the play "Todo bicho de uña". It tells the story of revenge. The tour of the Andean, for ten years, a young man in search of the rapist and murderer of his mother, takes us into the underworld strata fairs and circuses villagers.

Cuchillos de fuego

1990

Cuchillos de fuego poster
5.0

Version of the play "Todo bicho de uña". It tells the story of revenge. The tour of the Andean, for ten years, a young man in search of the rapist and murderer of his mother, takes us into the underworld strata fairs and circuses villagers.

Cuchillos de fuego

1990

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

The Smoking Fish poster
6.9

A handsome young man is released from jail and goes to "El Pez que Fuma", a bordello in the outskirts of Caracas. La Garza, its middle-aged owner, hires the young man as handy man, but soon he takes the place of the administrator, who is also La Garza's lover.

The Smoking Fish

1977

The Smoking Fish poster
6.9

A handsome young man is released from jail and goes to "El Pez que Fuma", a bordello in the outskirts of Caracas. La Garza, its middle-aged owner, hires the young man as handy man, but soon he takes the place of the administrator, who is also La Garza's lover.

The Smoking Fish

1977

Bodas de Papel poster
10.0

Esther and Gustavo are celebrating seven years of happy marriage. Two beautiful children and a comfortable home in a residential area backs the stability of the still young couple, a conventional model of marriage where nothing seems to disturb their harmonious coexistence.

Bodas de Papel

1979

Crab poster
8.0

Commissioner Leon (Miguel Angel Landa) of the Technical Judicial Police is assigned to the kidnapping of a child of the upper class of Caracas. The details of the kidnapping the attention of Leon, as there is no evidence of violence in the child's home, or witnesses to the abduction. Based on that Leon believes that the hijackers knew the boy and soon begins to suspect several young people from wealthy families of Caracas.

Crab

1982

Young Cain poster
6.8

Juana moves with her son Juan from the country to Caracas in search of better work and educational opportunities. When they get there they have to live in a poor home in one of the slums located in the city's outskirts, where they encounter a horrible world full of promiscuity and misery, that is quite different from what they expected and that eventually will lead Juana to self-destruction and Juan to reconsider his life in the city.

Young Cain

1959

Young Cain poster
6.8

Juana moves with her son Juan from the country to Caracas in search of better work and educational opportunities. When they get there they have to live in a poor home in one of the slums located in the city's outskirts, where they encounter a horrible world full of promiscuity and misery, that is quite different from what they expected and that eventually will lead Juana to self-destruction and Juan to reconsider his life in the city.

Young Cain

1959

Crab II poster
7.5

Commissioner Leon (Miguel Angel Landa) investigates the murder of a woman in a population near the capital. The woman was raped before death and the case is complicated when his brother becomes the prime suspect, since it is a priest (Eduardo Serrano). Because of the implications that inquiries might have, Leon is pressured to keep the event as a "crab" (Cangrejo, or a unsolvable case), but he decides to comply with the law.

Crab II

1984

When I Want to Cry, I Don't poster
5.0

In Venezuela, one day in 1948 there were born three children all named Victorino: Pérez, mulatto and son of the poor Lucía; Perdomo, son of a middle-class communist who gets arrested; and bourgeois Peralta. On the day of his eighteenth birthday Pérez escapes from prison using lather pretending it to be a rage attack. Peralta shows a friend of his a car he got from his parents. A young lady gives herself to Perdomo as a birthday present. Pérez finds his mistress with another man and wounds her. Pérez and a few others rob an old man while riding on their motorcycles. Perdomo and a bunch of bushwhackers plan to rob a bank. Pérez sees a friend of his smoking pot while Peralta visits a cousin of his and has sex with her. Perdomo’s father, recently elected a communist representative wants to talk him out of his violent ways. Pérez sleeps with three girls and remembers how he once killed a man in the middle of a robbery. Peralta and his friends shoot dogs just for fun. Perdomo and his pals…

When I Want to Cry, I Don't

1973

El caracazo poster
4.3

El Caracazo o Sacudón fue una serie de fuertes protestas y disturbios durante el gobierno de Carlos Andrés Pérez, que comenzó el día 27 de febrero y terminó el día 28 de febrero de 1989 en la ciudad de Caracas, e iniciados realmente en la ciudad de Guarenas, cercana a Caracas. El nombre proviene de Caracas, la ciudad donde acontecieron parte de los hechos, recordando a otro hecho ocurrido en Colombia el 9 de abril de 1948; el Bogotazo. La masacre ocurrió el día 28 de febrero cuando fuerzas de seguridad de la Policía Metropolitana (PM) y Fuerzas Armadas del Ejército y de la Guardia Nacional (GN) salieron a las calles a controlar la situación.

El caracazo

2005

El caracazo poster
4.3

El Caracazo o Sacudón fue una serie de fuertes protestas y disturbios durante el gobierno de Carlos Andrés Pérez, que comenzó el día 27 de febrero y terminó el día 28 de febrero de 1989 en la ciudad de Caracas, e iniciados realmente en la ciudad de Guarenas, cercana a Caracas. El nombre proviene de Caracas, la ciudad donde acontecieron parte de los hechos, recordando a otro hecho ocurrido en Colombia el 9 de abril de 1948; el Bogotazo. La masacre ocurrió el día 28 de febrero cuando fuerzas de seguridad de la Policía Metropolitana (PM) y Fuerzas Armadas del Ejército y de la Guardia Nacional (GN) salieron a las calles a controlar la situación.

El caracazo

2005

The Flock of Angels poster
8.0

Ingrid is a young high school student who due to the impact suffered by the death of his mother, is acting strangely causing concern to her teachers. After a landslide caused by heavy rains, police surrounded the premises of the high school to expel the refugees resulting in the classes suspended.

The Flock of Angels

1979

The Burning of Judas poster
6.4

Jesús María Carmona is a small-time crook who poses as a cop so he can rob a bank. A few days before the day he planned to do it, a guerrilla group robs the same bank and Carmona is shot to death defending it when he has no other choice but to act as a policeman. Soon after, his image becomes a symbol for the police and he is honored, but his identity is found out. Meanwhile, in the neighborhood where he grew up his effigy is burned as he is now considered a traitor.

The Burning of Judas

1974