In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, six pillars of society repeatedly try to have dinner together, their plans interrupted by events both real (scheduling mix-ups, a restaurateur's death) and increasingly surreal (including a series of typically Buñuellian dream sequences).

Jean-Pierre Cassel, Delphine Seyring, Stéphane Audran, Bulle Ogier and long-time Buñuel collaborators Fernando Rey and Paul Frankeur head the extraordinary cast of a film made when Buñuel was 72 years old. Full of passion and fire, it was the 1972 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film and BAFTA winner for Best Screenplay.

Born in Spain, Luis Buñuel is widely credited as having founded Surrealist Cinema with films such as Un Chien andalou (made with Salvador Dali) and L’Age d’Or. Sensing that someone with his political and artistic sensibilities would have no place in a Nationalist-controlled Spain, Buñuel emigrated to New York and later to Mexico, where his career in cinema really began. Here Buñuel made such classics as Los Olvidados, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, The Exterminating Angel and Viridiana.

After the end of the Golden Age of the Mexican film industry, Buñuel returned to Europe. THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE was written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, after producer Serge Silberman related an anecdote to them about dinner guests turning up at the house of a friend, only to discover that the host is out, and they have the dates wrong.

The three men collaborated on many films together, several of which also screen as part of BFI Southbank’s season of films celebrating the work of Jean-Claude Carrière. A double BAFTA winner and three time Oscar Nominee for Best Screenplay, Carrière has written the screenplays for many classic films including:

Belle de Jour, The Milky Way, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Tin Drum, La Piscine, Sommersby and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He is an Oscar winner for the short film Happy Anniversary.

Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and disquietingly bizarre THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE remains one of Buñuel's most popular films.

In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the film’s original release, STUDIOCANAL and the ICO are also pleased to announce that they will be releasing the re-mastered digital print of Luis Buñuel’s surreal comedy in cinemas on June 29th, including an Extended Run at BFI Southbank as part of their Jean-Claude Carrière season.