Ikuska 7: Barandiaran

Documentary dedicated to the new Basque music.

'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.

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 singer frozen in old black and white photos. Forever young. Encapsulated. Trapped in the frame, just like her voice on her vinyl records. Forgetting that the point of view is chosen. Forgetting that, in addition to being a singer, Lurdes Iriondo is also an essential reference in the transmission of Basque culture. She understood that children were the key, and she worked for them.

An analysis of the controversy over the participation of women in the Irun and Hondarribia festivity known as Alarde. It is divided into three parts: in the first part, the history, structure, and characteristics of the Alarde are explained; in the second part, the beginning of the conflict and its development in the 1990s; and in the third part, the present situation, reflecting on the present and future of the festival.

A documentary film about the origins of the Basque trikitixa. It reflects how the small accordion brought by one of the Italian workers who came to build the Madrid-Paris railway tunnels in 1859, starting from Zumarraga, has become a symbol of contemporary Basque music.

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.

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…

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.

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?

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.

The discovery of a series of unreleased tapes leads Juan Carlos Pérez, leader of the iconic group Itoiz, to reflect on the dissolution of the band at its peak, after a clear change of style towards pop that he still denies today. Juan Carlos will thus begin a cathartic journey to the essence of the group, reliving the beginnings of the band as a progressive rock group in Mutriku in the 70's, which will serve him to reconcile with the past.

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

A memory to the victims and a tribute to the survivors of one of the most tragic episodes of the Spanish Civil War: the bombings suffered by the population of Gernika.