BUÑUEL'S PRISONERS

director : Ramon Gieling
photography : Goert Giltay
sound : Harold Jalving
editor : Berenike Rozgonyi
music : Micha Molthoff
production company : Pieter van Huystee Film
format : 35mm, colour and black & white
length : 73 min.


LAND WITHOUT BREAD

The prisoners of Buñuel is a film about Las Hurdes, an area in western Spain where once a mysterious poverty reigned supreme. The Spanish film-maker Luis Buñuel made a film about it in 1932. Las Hurdes, tierra sin pan (Land without Bread). The film-maker portrayed the area as a black hell on earth: a land of starvation, disease, dwarves, insane and prematurely-aged women. A land forsaken by God.

In 1999, a curse still rests on the film and the local inhabitants still combat the black legend that circulates about their area.

A small film crew returns to Las Hurdes in 1999 with a screen and a copy of Buñuel's film. In the local square, the film is shown and we hear wonderfull stories of the villagers and see their occasionally fierce reactions to the film that is over sixty years old. This forms the backdrop to a new picture of the local inhabitants.

Have the film-makers come to do the same as Buñuel or do they bring the comfort of an unprejudiced gaze?



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