Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel was born in Calanda, Spain on February 22, 1900. He later attended the University of Madrid where he became friends with Salvador Dali, Garcia Lorca, and other future Spanish intellectuals. Buñuel moved to Paris to study film and, after working with Jean Epstein and Mario Nalpas as an assistant, conceived of and shot Un Chien Andalou with Dali, which gained them acceptance with Paris surrealists. Soon after, Buñuel directed L'Age d'Or, a film which further emphasized his intellectual fervor. From 1933 to 1947, Buñuel found work where he could, dubbing and supervising the making of foreign versions of American studio films and, in the 1950s, returned to filmmaking with Los Olvidados and Nazarin, having lost none of his subversive qualities. Into the 1960s and '70s, Buñuel made perhaps his finest work, including Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).