The entire intellectual cream of the Spanish capital was invited to a semi-private show. The screening of the film in its first, still silent version was accompanied by music played from the turntable and the narrator's commentary personally read by Buñuel himself. During the premiere show there was a schism between the director and Gregorio Marañón, a former assistant to King Alfonso XIII of Spain during his trip to the Las Hurdes region in 1922 and the former director of the Royal Patronage (Spanish Patronato Real), an organization formed shortly after the trip to improving the situation of the inhabitants of the region. Land Without Bread provoked such an uproar in Spain that conservative forces banned the distribution of the image throughout the country. The official reason for the censorship record was "defamation of the good name of the Spanish people." It was banned from 1933 to 1936. Reception Writing for Night and Day in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a neutral review, describing it as "[a]n honest and hideous picture, [...] free from propaganda". Greene claimed that it had a powerful effect and that it was "enough to shake anyone's complacency or self-pity". In modern times, critical reception for Land Without Bread has been mostly positive. Ed Gonzalez from Slant Magazine, for example, awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars, writing, "Las Hurdes becomes a frightening call to arms, a fabulous open text that resists simple readings and questions humanity's notion of progress." Jeffrey Ruoff called it a "revolutionary film." Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is a 2018 Spanish-Dutch animated film based on the graphic novel Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas by Fermín Solís. It covers how Buñuel and his crew filmed at Las Hurdes. References External links 1933 documentary films 1933 films Filmed deaths of animals Films directed by Luis Buñuel Films scored by Darius Milhaud 1930s French-language films Las Hurdes Media bias controversies Animal cruelty incidents in film Social realism in film Spanish black-and-white films Spanish documentary films Spanish short films Spanish silent films Extremadura in fiction