Euskadi, Summer 1982

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.

At just 17 years old, Eduardo Madina and Borja Semper decided to enter politics to defend freedom of thought in the Basque Country. This made them a target of the ETA terrorist group for almost two decades.

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

This documentary updates the life experiences of victims of ETA terrorist activity, twenty years after the multi-award-winning documentary Sin libertad (Without Freedom, 2001). With an experimental intent, it seeks to link the present and the future through five young journalism students in their twenties who have not experienced ETA terrorism and are responsible for interviewing the victims.

The film follows five people from different origins as they move anonymously around the streets of Berlin. Each of them with another life somewhere else, trying to ascertain where to go.

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

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.

An in-depth interview with José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, known as Josu Ternera, one of the most relevant leaders of the terrorist gang ETA.

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?

Utopías y otras especies

Through his own photographs, the Basque artist Néstor Basterretxea (1924-2014) is portrayed by the art critic and exhibition curator Peio Aguirre, a great connoisseur of his work and personal archives.

Not unlike the travel blogs so in vogue today, this film takes us from Ereaga beach to Cape Matxitxako, treating us to an incomparable look at the beaches and towns on the way.

A peculiar in-depth reflection on the concept of homeland reflecting the atmosphere of Basque farmhouses with the participation of emblematic figures in the Basque culture of the period, like the bertsolaris (improvisers of Basque verse) Valentin Enbeita and Jon Lopategi and the Basque dancer Victor Olaeta. To avoid the censorship in place at the time, Elortza entitled the film 'Erria' (Country) rather than 'Aberria' (Homeland).

Draining two million cubic meters of water to protect a small animal in danger of extinction. This has been the task of those who have worked to remove the Enobieta reservoir and ensure a safe haven for the Pyrenean desman. This amazing story took place in Artikutza, the estate that San Sebastián bought in Navarre a century ago and which is now one of the best-preserved natural sites on the Cantabrian coast. In Normandy, meanwhile, the large Vezins dam has been removed. Its demolition will allow salmon to return to the Sélune River. Abandoned dams on rivers are barriers to biodiversity, and their demolition allows us to imagine a more habitable planet. That future will depend on small gestures, or large ones, such as those in Vezins and Enobia.

Basque Country, Spain. No one seems to know them. Some glances avoid theirs. Their social circle becomes smaller and smaller. They live under escort, watched by those who protect them and by those who threaten them: it is the experience of living in the shadow of ETA, a savage terrorist gang of unscrupulous criminals… of merely existing under the yoke of those who tomorrow could be their executioners.

A young filmmaker travels back home to Basque Country to follow three friends on a surreal nautical voyage. Riding a second-hand paddle boat, they pedal over 150km along the entire Basque coast from Hendaia (French Basque Country) to Bilbao in an attempt to rediscover their country's shoreline. However, as a paddle boat is not made for the rough Basque sea, things don't go as planned. The journey becomes a delirium with unforeseen accidents, folkloric parties, hangovers, a shaman, a funeral... Documenting the expedition of these 'sailors' on his own, the filmmaker finds himself on a parallel inner journey.

Vitoria, marzo de 1976

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.

The film starts in Bermeo and ends in Gernika. A magical trip taking us from the scent of salt air and the fishing atmosphere of Bermeo port to the roots of the Tree of Gernika.