Buñuel was inspired to make his only documentary after reading an account of impoverished villages in the Las Hurdes region of Spain. Funded by the lottery winnings of his friend and coproducer Ramón Acín, the film took liberties with reality to jolt viewers out of complacency and into revolutionary action. Even more shocking than his collaborations with Salvador Dalí, this film emphasizes the surreal absurdity of citizens of twentieth-century Spain dying of malnutrition and curable diseases next door to gilded cathedrals, while shoeless schoolchildren are taught to “respect property” when they have none.