The River and Death

Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the United States. Buñuel was born in Calanda, a small town in the province of Teruel, in Aragón, Spain, to Leonardo Buñuel and María Portolés. He would later describe his... birthplace by saying that in Calanda, "the Middle Ages lasted until World War I." The oldest of seven children, Luis had two brothers, Alfonso and Leonardo, and four sisters: Alicia, Concepción, Margarita and María. When Buñuel was just four and a half months old, the family moved to Zaragoza, where they were one of the wealthiest families in town. In Zaragoza, Buñuel received a strict Jesuit education at the private Colegio del Salvador. After being kicked and insulted by the study hall proctor before a final exam, Buñuel refused to return to the school. He told his mother he had been expelled, which was not true—and what's more, he had received the highest marks on his world history exam. Buñuel finished the last two years of his high school education at the local public school. In 1917, he went to university in Madrid.
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