Overview

Dead Well (Pozo muerto, 1967) is a Venezuelan documentary directed by Carlos Rebolledo and produced by the avant-garde collective El Techo de la Ballena. Through a series of testimonies from residents of the oil towns of Cabimas and Lagunillas, the film recounts the human cost of Venezuela’s oil industry. Tracing the country's petroleum history from the 1922 Barroso II oil well blowout to the late 1960s, it exposes the exploitation, poverty, and environmental devastation endured by communities along the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo. Filmed in black-and-white on 35mm, the documentary is regarded as a landmark work of the New Latin American Cinema.