Mexico is the only country in Latin America that had a full studio system, and it had it while Hollywood was distracted — wartime Washington sent Mexico the raw film stock it withheld from Buenos Aires, and Churubusco spent fifteen years supplying the entire Spanish-speaking world. Luis Buñuel then spent two decades inside that industry as a working director-for-hire, which is how a slum picture and a surrealist dinner party ended up on the same shelf. After it collapsed there is a long gap and then a very sudden return, and the three directors who made that return have been alternating between Mexico City and Los Angeles ever since.