
Miguel Curiel
Directing
Biography
Miguel Curiel is a Venezuelan filmmaker active since the 1980s, working as a director, screenwriter, producer, and occasionally cinematographer. He is best known for the feature La niña de Maracaibo (2011) and earlier works like Una noche oriental (1986), alongside documentaries such as Venezuela: los guerrilleros al poder (1997). A graduate in Letters from the Central University of Venezuela, Curiel has also written and produced widely across Venezuelan film and culture.
Known For

A detective, goes from Spain to the Venezuelan Guajira, hired by the king of Wuayuus, to protect her, Niña de Maracaibo (wife of King, who belongs to an aristocratic family in the city) the detective tries to discover a conspiracy greater than initially imagined. Where he is only one piece in a plot which mixes smuggling, power struggles and tribal magic. The clash of two opposite visions, the 'Western' Spanish researcher, and the 'native' the Wuayuu original owners of Caribbean, converts this format film apparently 'police' in a thesis film revealing the mystery of the still existing singular South American identity.
Wayúu: La Niña de Maracaibo

Adonai is an lunatic poet. He lives in an abandoned neighborhood of Caracas where he runs an underground radio called "Radio Pandemonium", he lives with his mom, his grandmother and a young lady who she calls very endearly, 'whore'. They survive among the corrupt, the death and the rising upheaval of the oppressed.
Pandemonium, the Hell's Capital City

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

1984, in Venezuela, in a supermarket, young children are used as caddies: they load customers' errands and roll them up to their car. Their leader is Rafa (Amilcar Rivero). Cheo (Alexandra Rodriguez) would like to be caddy and despite the agreement of the chief of staff, Rafa asked him to pass the test of the "little day": spend a night inside the store without getting caught by the guards.
Operación chocolate

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

A 1995 TV movie from Venezuelan TV channel RCTV Producciones, this 60-minute horror comedy features writer/director/star Tony Rodríguez as the lead, Armandito, who travels to Caracas and stays in an inn with a mysterious past involving a former resident whose hand was severed. After an electrifying accident, Armandito's hand becomes possessed and he controlled by its urges and mission to complete unfinished business.
La Mano

Adonai Flores, an experienced writer of telenovelas, falls in love with Belén Helena, a girl of low class. Adonay, desperate to keep her with him, abandons his responsibilities and even his dog. After discovering that she is a drug dealer he decides to leave her and recovers his dog
Ratón en Ferretería

The documentary recreates the facts in the life of the Yukpa Chief, Sabino Romero, an indigenous fighter killed on March 3, 2013, in the Chaktapa community of the Sierra de Perija in Zulia state, Venezuela. The film reflects the infinite struggle of Sabino and his people, accompanied by the social groups, in this story of truly libertarian images made with blood and fire, revealing the skein of interests that forged and carried out Sabino's murder, and the attitude Inhuman and murderous of those who made it another victim of history.
Sabino vive: las últimas fronteras

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

In the city of gold as they call it, Palenque, Jean, Rose and Machete find themselves immersed in a marginal world trying to survive with the opportunities that the city offers them, with the anguish of being deported, with the temptation of the easily earned money. They look for another El Dorado or return, broken by the environment, from where they came. Some flee, others die in this sordid environment. They are human beings, mostly Colombians, who live in Venezuelan society, whose culture they enrich, perverting or adopting.
By the Green Trail

Documentary that tells the story of some Venezuelan guerrilleros who, following the so-called Pacification of the 1970s, held official positions in various Venezuelan state entities. Venezuelan political figures share their perspectives on this recent event in Venezuelan history.
Venezuela: los guerrilleros al poder
In a small-town neighborhood, a group of ordinary men pool their savings to buy a single elegant white suit, passing it from one to another as each pursues a fleeting dream of transformation.
El traje color de helado de mantecado

Lily tells the story of two prostitutes who live on the side of a road, running a humble house that is frequented by truck drivers and people from neighboring towns.
Lily

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
The turning point is in between the surrealism and the magic reality: The Tropical Couple. They were a young couple and the time to discover and surprise each other had past. The time had come to share fears and solitude too. The neighbors make love and watch pornos. It’s Sunday and it’s very hot. She and he are not even angry at each other anymore. Their fantasies are running out of a lot of loneliness. She is the woman and He is the man. She is flesh & spirit. He is spirit & flesh. The fridge is broken, the food is rotting. ‘Look at me I’m naked and waiting for you inside the fridge. I’m your little Mama, your domadora, what ever you want’. The song keeps playing on the recorder and the refrigerator still is broken. ‘I beat you but I love you. Maybe the neighbor will see us while we make love watching porno. Why do we always find each other in the neighbor’s window?
Al calor de una nevera descompuesta
A wandering showman known as Blacamán the Good sells miraculous cures to the poor and desperate, blurring the line between faith and fraud. Under the shadow of another, more sinister Blacamán, his life becomes a cycle of deception, where each miracle deepens his entrapment.
Blacamán el bueno, vendedor de milagros

A documentary about the building of a damn near Caño Mánamo and the effects it has on the environment.