A film set in the Basque region, beginning in the Carlist war of 1875 and ending during the Spanish Civil war of 1936. The film portrays how one single act of cowardice shapes the life of the next three generations of two families and fuels the intense rivalry which will span the next sixty-one years.
The Basque Country, 2009. Lide is a security guard for the high-speed train works, a project that generates social protests in the streets. Coming home after work and partying all night, she makes breakfast for two, but her teenage daughter, Ane, is nowhere to be found. The next day, she’s still not back.
Human bones are found at the Garizmendi farmhouse. Farmers Fermin and Karmen call their son Nestor, who reports the matter to the authorities. But, when the agents turn up, the bones are gone. Suddenly, the bell on the nearby chapel begins to peal. This bad omen announces the coming of tragic events and reopens old wounds within the family and those around it.
Arián, a young Basque girl, idealistic but naive, joins a ruthless terrorist gang and, hoping to prove her commitment, volunteers to participate in the kidnapping of the daughter of an important businessman.
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?
The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.
A trigger-happy Nationalist fears retribution from the son of a man he executed. To mollify the boy's anger, he takes a drastic step: he keeps constant watch over the fig tree the boy has planted at his father's gravesite. As the years pass, the man's lonely vigil makes him a tourist attraction, much to the chagrin of his former colleagues.
Nora is 30 years old; she lives with her Argentinian grandfather Nicolás and regularly takes care of her friend Meri's children. She writes the horoscope for the town newspaper, although her dream is to be a travel writer. When her grandfather dies, she inherits an old Dyane 6. Despite being a terrible driver, Nora will set out aimlessly on a road trip along the Basque coast so that her grandfather's ashes may finally rest beside those of her grandmother. The road will soon teach her that she's not a born traveller and that her dream had nothing to do with roving, but was only an excuse for the chance to be free, to grow, to close wounds and, for the first time, to find her own happiness.
Irene, a former member of the terrorist gang ETA recently released from prison in Catalonia, recalls her past during her return trip to the Basque Country.
Proceso a ETA
David Imaz had to flee from the Basque Country in the mid-seventies, repudiated by his people, accused of betrayal. Despite having found happiness in California, his past still weighs him down and the feeling of guilt prevents him from being able to settle down and peacefully enjoy the last days of his life. Joseba Altuna, his childhood friend, comes to say goodbye and to settle the score while he's at it. It's been a long time since they saw one another, but the time has come to face the truth.
In the mountains of the Basque Country, a mother and her daughter take shelter in a ruined hut that seems uninhabited.
Having fought in the First Carlist War, Martin returns to his family farm in Gipuzkoa only to find that his younger brother, Joaquín, towers over him in height. Convinced that everyone will want to pay to see the tallest man on Earth, the siblings set out on a long trip all over Europe, during which ambition, money and fame will forever change the family’s fate. A story based on true events.
19-year-old Floreal is suddenly forced to face a past he tried very hard to overcome. A past that involves his eccentric grandmother Amanqay and a power stone she left behind.
Ion is a seemingly normal guy whose life goes by without a hitch. A phone call; a meeting with a friend; small, unimportant everyday situations. One day he gets into a car with two other people. They cross the border between Spain and France. The next morning, their lives will change forever.
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.
Itziar is eight years old and lives in two very different worlds. On the one hand, the world of her disappointed Basque nationalist parents and, on the other, the religious school, which gives the girl a repressive and retrograde education. However, there is another kind of world, much nicer to Itziar, formed by the street and her friends.
Two journalists investigate the criminal activities of the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación), a secret terrorist organization founded in the eighties and financed by leading figures in the Spanish government and security forces to hunt down and exterminate both members and collaborators of the terrorist gang ETA.
Ainhoa's career as a pianist is put on hold when she's knocked down in the center of Barcelona. Her love life isn't exactly at its best either. Shortly before the accident she met Imanol, but had been incapable of sharing her life with him due to an inability to show her feelings. The origins of her fears lie in the ETA attack she witnessed at the age of 15.
Bilbao, Basque Country, 2001: a ruthless terrorist attack shatters the family of police officer Carlos Martínez. Barcelona, 2013: Carlos leaves Mariusz, a Polish immigrant, in charge of his daughter and, offering vague excuses, returns to the Basque Country and rents a house in Lekeitio, a small village by the sea.