The Mostra International Film Festival could scarcely allow a year to go by, when the centennial of Luis Buñuel's genius is remembered, without a significant retrospective, selected from among the thirty-two films that he made in Spain, Mexico, and France.

Buñuel brought surrealism to the cinema with Salvador Dali. And he went beyond and incorporated anarchy and non-conformity, in his trajectory of flights and exile from Franco fascism, including frustrated attempts at filming in New York, where he actually held a job as an employee of the Museum of Modern Art, to keep his family.

He was refused in Hollywood before he settled in Mexico where, among a greater number of films of low creative yield, made to order, he managed to establish style and close collaboration with photographer and genius in lighting Gabriel Figueroa (special mention in the 19th Mostra). Human perversion generated by indifference in face of social maladjustment, desires repressed by the strong morals prevalent in his day, a radical aversion to the clergy, implacable vision against hypocrisy were pronounced in his brilliant films.

I met Luis Buñuel in Cannes in 1971. He was introduced to me by another fugitive from fascism (Portuguese, from Salazar), journalist Novaes Teixeira. We strolled together along the Croisette, a walk along the sea-front, and I answered his questions about the political situation in Brazil. On the way back, a tall woman was coming our way. We let her pass and she went by without any sign of recognition. It was Glenda Jackson, an anonymous diva out on a walk before seven in the morning with Cannes then so peaceful and provincial that Buñuel could not resist... He took me by the arm and stopped: "Es fea pero me habla al carajo!" said the Master. "She may be plain; however, she speaks to me where it counts", so spoke the Master.

To political solidarity and to his fascination for women, I therefore owe this rare and magic hour of intimacy granted to me by one of the greatest geniuses of the cinema, whose films I shall never cease to watch, over and again, whether on a video or on a large cinema screen. His work is and always will be fascinating, contemporary, and corrosive. Without the anarchy, the inventions and non-conformism of Buñuel, this century of cinema would have been... let's say... far less exciting.

Leon Cakoff