What was the title of Germaine Dulac’s 1928 film often called the first Surrealist film?

Germaine Dulac’s 1928 film often called the first Surrealist film was The Seashell and the Clergyman.

The Seashell and the Clergyman was directed by French filmmaker Germaine Dulac from a screenplay by Antonin Artaud. It follows a clergyman whose desire and jealousy unfold through disjointed, dreamlike episodes rather than conventional narrative logic.

The film is important because it brought Surrealist ideas into cinema before the movement’s most famous film collaborations became widely known. Its imagery uses visual associations, abrupt transitions, and psychologically charged scenes to create an unstable dream world. Artaud’s screenplay and Dulac’s direction also generated controversy among Surrealists.

The film is sometimes confused with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou, released in 1929. The two films are separate works. Another early experimental film, Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet, appeared in 1930 and is often discussed alongside Surrealist cinema, but Dulac’s film predates it.