Erreferenduma

Pilot chapter of the film series 'Ikuska', a compilation of shorts on the Basque Country’s culture and politics. A documentary about the referendum on the Spanish constitution.

I'm Not From Here

Day after day, an elderly woman recalls the Spanish Basque country of her youth — while forgetting she is consigned to a retirement home in Chile.

Stepping Into the Boundary

Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, 2011. Maider, a filmmaker, moves to the very same flat where pedadogist Elbira Zipitria Irastorza (1906-1982) clandestinely established the first ikastola, a Basque school, under the harsh regime of dictator Francisco Franco. Despite of her pioneering work, developed throughout thirty years, her story is not well known, so Maider, intrigued, begins to research…

Bide bazterrean hi eta ni kantari

"Look for the part that's missing from this book; there, somewhere in your house it's kept. I've tried to walk as far as halfway between you and I; I can't carry on. The respect I bear for what's yours does not let me go any further", Joxean Artze.

Zumiriki

Is it possible to travel twice to the same memory? The filmmaker built a cabin on an isolated riverbank, just opposite his childhood island, which had disappeared under the water after the construction of a dam. The goal was to go back to that place, which had become invisible. Only the trees of the island where he’d played stood firm in the middle of the water, like the masts of a broken toy boat, so the air was the only space left, the only vestige of the past to be conquered. This film is a diary of a castaway in memories: four months of a Walden experience in a lost paradise with two hens, a small vegetable garden and a clock that stopped forever at 11.36 and 23 seconds.

Pelota

A documentary view of the Basque ball-game in which a small hard leather ball is hit against a wall. The film gives an impression of the game itself and of those who play it, not only the star performers (and the myths that surround them), but also those who just play in the streets and alleyways. The film sees the game it its cultural context and conveys the emotions and stories that are peculiar to the Basque country.

In Ictu Oculi

The six-decade transformation of a block of houses, shown by means of artfully featured archival shots, highlights the beauty and sadness of human-made decay. In the blink of an eye 66 years pass by and a savings bank replaces a church.

Two Years, Four Months and One Day

The documentary tells the story of six friends who fought against compulsory military service in the Basque Country. They were all imprisoned for refusing to perform military service, and they all preferred prison to the army. They showed great courage and stubbornness, until they managed to win the antimilitarist struggle against the Spanish State.

Jai Alai Blues

The story of how a humble Basque rural sport called zesta punta —or jai alai— was successfully exported from the Basque Country to nations as different as Egypt, China, the Philippines, Cuba, Mexico or the United States. In these places, the pelotaris were considered true artists at the fronton. But the splendour of the jai alai, the happy feast, could not last forever.

160 meters: A Story Of Rock In Biscay

160 meters is the distance between the two banks of the estuary of Bilbao. An economic, social and cultural approach at two ways of looking at life.

Pelotari

In this short documentary film about Basque pelota, in addition to showing the different modalities (basket ball, handball, paddle, ratchet...), well-known pelota players of the time take part.

Amari

El instante decisivo

Spain, 1997. The story of twelve days in July during which Basque society left indifference and fear behind and faced the threat of the terrorist group ETA.

The Scars

The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?

Exergo

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

The Demise of ETA

The chronicle of the process, ten long years, that led to the end of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), a Basque terrorist gang that perpetrated robberies, kidnappings and murders in Spain and the French Basque Country for more than fifty years. Almost 1,000 people died, but others are still alive to tell the story of how the nightmare finally ended.