A young woman who has just started a job at an art museum writes an email to a friend she lived with until recently. The other woman, also young, works as an artist and has just moved to a new city. A narrator reads this email, but we don't know which of the two women the voice belongs to, whether to the sender or to the receiver of the message. Neither are we aware of the details of this relationship; but what we do know is that, in addition to their interest in art, they share a concern for the difficulties of carrying out their personal and professional lives in the present. By focusing on the peripheral or hidden details of some paintings in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, this narrator relates several stories linked to the social, economic and psychological conditions of the artists, both past and present.
Western Pyrenees, year 778. When his land is threatened by the ruthless armies of the Frankish emperor, a Basque warlord asks for help from his ancestral gods.
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?
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.
A Basque mythological creature struggles to regain her power after a man steals her egg.
Election night. Aimar, leader of the left-wing Basque nationalist movement, returns home more tired than ever. Itziar awaits him, exhausted. At the entrance, the remnants of a protest by the radical youth of their own party. Aimar has to make a decision: Does he want to continue dedicating his life to the nationalist cause, even in the worst of times?
A group of childhood friends has gone to a country house to celebrate the bachelor party of one of them. But the years do not pass in vain, and, although they feel a very strong bond between them, nothing is what it used to be; or yes...
Falling in love with your best friend is not easy. Avoiding the subject and feeding the fantasy is something which will take its toll. Knowing you are crossing a red line is not always a reason to stop. Sometimes, it's necessary to meet a harsh reality in order to believe it. Gentzane, a young girl settled in her inner world, justifies each one of her actions to be around the person she loves.
Lur and Amets’ parents have to go to a wedding this weekend. For this reason, they leave the twins at Grandma Andere’s. However, it’s not going to be a conventional weekend thanks to her magic powers and her cat Baltaxar. They will set out on an unforgettable journey travelling to different eras and having new adventures throughout the history of the Basque Country. Although they are the main characters of every story, Andere and Baltaxar will help them. Unfortunately, two evil men will always be hot on their heels.
It's the last night of the graduation trip. An excellent opportunity for a young boy to declare his love to Haizea, the girl he likes. But he doesn't know how to do it. Or yes. Yes, he does. He knows too many ways to do it.
'Ama Lur' is a documentary, directed by Nestor Basterretxea and Fernando Larruquert, that premiered in San Sebastián in 1968, and it is considered the foundation of Basque cinema.
In a non-existent town, five true stories based on oral testimonials and texts by writers take place between 1914 and 1982. Through them, we see the social changes experienced throughout the 20th century by a small town in the Northern Basque Country, the deep-rootedness and approximation of a language, and the struggle for survival.
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.
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.
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.
Juan Martin, a young boy from San Sebastian, decides to spend the summer in a remote hillside farmhouse to improve his Basque. But there he discovers that the language they use has little in common with his classroom learnings.
Documentary on the life of the Basque shepherd and oral improviser (or 'bertsolari') Fernando Aire (1920-1976), known as 'Xalbador'.
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.
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…
An ethnographic documentary which looks at the relationship between music and work in predominantly rural cultures. It depicts the lives of fisherman, shepherds and farmers and their relationship with music. The film also describes Basque ancestral instruments, with special emphasis on the origin and history of ‘bertsolarism’ (Basque verse singing) as a form of oral communication.