De gevangenen van Buñuel

The Prisoners of Buñuel is a film about Las Hurdes, an area in western Spain about which Luis Buñuel in 1932 made the feature Las Hurdes, tierra sin pan (Land without Bread). In this film Buñuel 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. More than sixty years later, a curse still rests on the film by Buñuel: 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. We hear wonderful stories of the villagers and see their occasionally fierce reactions to the film. 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? Ramón Gieling is a versatile and productive documentary-maker who has in the past allowed himself to be inspired by the writers Garcia Lorca, Octavio Paz, the composers Simeon ten Holt and Thom Willems and by colleague documentary-maker Johan van der Keuken. The release of The Prisoners of Buñuel in 2000 coincides with the 100th anniversary of Buñuel’s birth.