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.

Lagun y la resistencia frente a ETA

The turbulent story of the Lagun bookstore — located in San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, Spain — is a powerful tale of courage, resistance and struggle; first against the Franco dictatorship, then against the terrorist gang ETA and its numerous and sinister acolytes.

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.

Amari

Bi urte, lau hilabete eta egun bat

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.

Begiak hesteko artean

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.

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.

La pelota vasca: la piel contra la piedra

An attempt to create a bridge between the different political positions that coexist, sometimes violently, in the Basque Country, in northern Spain.

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.

Orbainak

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?

Yo no soy de aquí

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.

160 metros: una historia del rock en Bizkaia

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.

Sin libertad: 20 años después

Rock Radikal Vasco: La gran martxa de los 80

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.

Amerikanuak

A documentary about Basque inmigrants who went to USA looking for work and a better future. Basically, Amerikanuak talks about feeling homesick, about struggling in a different country to make a decent living and about being part of a comunity.

Natura Bizia

Ikuska 1: Ikastolak

The first film of the 'Ikuska' series, on the situation of schools in Basque language.

Ikuska 4: Euskal Telebista

Debate on the launch of Basque television (ETB, Euskal Telebista).

Ikuska 7: Barandiaran

Interview and tribute to Jose Migel Barandiaran, researcher on Basque culture.