1929 An Andalusian Dog / Un Chien Andalou

Luis Buñuel in 1929 joined the Surreal group of Paris. He will write about this move: "The moral and artistic intransigence of this group, the new space of its sociopolitical action, perfectly matched my temperament". The funding for the experimental film, "Andalusian Dog" (1929) will be made by his mother, giving him 25,000 pesetas. With this money he made his first film, which at the same time was the first surreal film in the history of Cinema. The script of the film is signed by the director along with Salvador Dali. It is a black and white mute film lasting 17 minutes, 430 meters. It is worth noting that sound was added to this film in 1960. These are musical excerpts from Tristan and Wagner's Isolde, and pieces from Argentine tango. The film stars Simone Mareille, Pierre Batsev, and stars Jaime Miraville, Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel.

Describing this creation, he comments years later: "It is a short film, without dogs and Andalusians, and in which the aesthetics of surrealism are merged with the discoveries of Freud. The film echoed the general principles of this school, which defines surrealism as an unconscious, psychic automatism, capable of returning to the mind its true function, outside any control imposed by logic, morality or aesthetics. Although I benefited from the various dream elements, the film is not the description of a dream. On the contrary, the atmosphere and characters are given realistically. Its main difference from other films lies in the fact that the characters function, motivated by motives, the primary sources of which are confused with those of the irrational which, in turn, belong to the field of poetry. Sometimes, these characters react enigmatically, as enigmatic as a pathological psychic complex can be.

The film targets people's unconscious feelings and therefore has universal value, although it can be obnoxious to certain social groups possessed by puritanical moral values. When I made the film, I was pretty sure it was going to be a failure – but that didn't interest me because I thought the film was expressing something that no other film had ever expressed before. And, above all, the film was honest."

The excerpts of the tribute come from the book, Cinema / Screenplays, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali: "The Andalusian Dog", Translated by Veronica Dalakura, Capricorn Editions 2000. Archive of Maria Michelogianni.