The Cinema of Luis Buñuel
Ernesto Gómez
In the free online seminar The Cinema of Luis Buñuel, we will examine the life and work of the Spanish filmmaker. This series of webinars are part of the Panhispanic Studies programme of the Instituto Cervantes in Leeds and Manchester and, as such, it will be given mainly in English.
Luis Buñuel Portolés (Calanda, Teruel (Aragón), 1900 - Mexico City, 1983) is one of the eminent figures in the history of world cinematography, and he is also considered the master of surrealism in cinema. Despite having become the quintessential Spanish filmmaker, the difficulties that Franco's regime imposed with censorship, and his political and religious ideas contrary to Francoism ideology, it led him to spend most of his career in France and Mexico. The themes that he dealt with the most in his films are gratuitous violence and cruelty, eroticism and sexuality, religious fervour and the bourgeoisie.
The talks will be given by film specialist María Seijo-Richart. a film specialist from the University of Leeds. María Seijo-Richart obtained her international PhD in English Philology (film adaptation specialism) at the Universidade da Coruña in 2014. An important part of her research focused on Luis Buñuel and the cinema influenced by Surrealism. She also did a master's degree in World Cinema at the University of Leeds, where she currently works. She has given seminars on audiovisual adaptation at Leeds Beckett University. Her research interests are the audiovisual adaptation of one culture to another and the cinema in minority languages (specifically the Galician audiovisual sector). She has published several articles and presented lectures at universities in the UK and Spain.
