Ikuska 13: Euskal kanta berria

Documentary that presents the urban problems of Bilbao.

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

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Documentary on the life of the Basque shepherd and oral improviser (or 'bertsolari') Fernando Aire (1920-1976), known as 'Xalbador'.

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