Plot

A surrealist film, a pseudo-documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain where civilisation has barely developed, showing how the local peasants try to survive without even the most basic utilities and skills.

In this documentary short by director Luis Buñuel he travels to Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain which was connected to the outside world in 1922 with the completion of a road. The residents of the area, spread across several villages, live in poverty and in isolation from the outside world. They survive mostly on a diet of potatoes and beans with meat available only a few days a week. In fact, they eat goat meat only when a goat happens to die. Inbreeding results in a disproportionately large number of people with mental disabilities. The title refers to the fact that the residents did not know how to make bread.—garykmcd

Pivoting around Luis Buñuel's belief that a film must always defend and indirectly communicate the idea that we live in a brutal, hypocritical, and unjust world, "Land Without Bread" focuses on what was considered to be one of the poorest and most geographically remote areas of Spain: the autonomous community of Las Hurdes. Without shying away from explicit violence, director Luis Buñuel portrays the extreme poverty, the inhuman conditions, and the despair of the indigenous population, portraying the lack of roads and electricity, as well as the worrying spread of diseases such as malaria.—Nick Riganas

The region of Las Hurdes, not far from Salamanca, is largely cut off from the rest of the world. To reach Las Hurdes, it is necessary to travel through the town of La Alberca, which itself has some unusual sights and customs. The Hurdanos themselves live in several dozen villages in the nearby mountains, near a valley that contains the ruins of a convent. The lifestyle of the Hurdanos is so primitive that, until fairly recently, even bread was unknown to them.—Snow Leopard