Director · Screenwriter · Editor · Actor · 1939–1981

Glauber Rocha

2: briefs
13:00: average
26 min: in total

On film.briefs2

Black God, White Devil

Glauber Rocha · 1964

Glauber Rocha’s 1964 Black God, White Devil is a foundational Cinema Novo film set in Brazil’s drought-ravaged sertão. It follows a ranch hand and his wife as they flee, convert, join bandits, and flee again — never escaping cycles of violence sanctified by religion or revolution. Shot in stark black and white, edited by Rocha himself, and scored by Sérgio Ricardo, it treats myth and history as inseparable, and endurance as the only authentic political act.

13:00

Simon of the Desert

Luis Buñuel · 1965

Luis Buñuel’s 1965 Simon of the Desert follows a sixth-century ascetic who lives atop a pillar in the Syrian desert — until Satan transports him to a 1960s New York nightclub. Shot by Gabriel Figueroa in the Samalayuca Dune Fields and edited with surgical restraint, the film uses Claudio Brook’s still, weary Simón to dissect the fragility of spiritual authority, the absurdity of purity, and the quiet violence of being watched. At 45 minutes, it is both complete and unresolved — a dry, precise, and deeply unsettling work of surrealist satire.