Natura Bizia

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.

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.

No me llame Ternera

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

El fin de ETA

The chronicle of the process, ten long years, that led to the end of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), a Basque terrorist gang that perpetrated robberies, kidnappings and murders in Spain and the French Basque Country for more than fifty years. Almost 1,000 people died, but others are still alive to tell the story of how the nightmare finally ended.

Impuros

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?

Perseguidos

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.

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.

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.

Olvidados

The relatives of the victims of the terrorist gang ETA speak of their suffering, their fear, their loneliness; of the systematic oblivion to which they are subjected by Basque society, both by those who remain silent and look the other way and by those who, accomplices of the criminals, share their repugnant ideology and celebrate extortion, kidnapping and murder, thus contributing to perpetuating a bloody reign of terror.

Trece entre mil

The abject crimes of the terrorist gang ETA have marked the lives of many Spaniards; men, women and children who were silenced, harassed, persecuted, finally murdered. Thirteen stories, thirteen tragedies, just thirteen among thousands.

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.

Euskadi, été 1982

Part of a series in which foreign filmmakers portray a region or town in France. Otar Iosselani looks at the Basque region and its inhabitants.

Ereagatik Matxitxakora

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.

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.

Asesinato en febrero

A reflection on the assassinations of social democrat politician Fernando Buesa Blanco and his bodyguard Jorge Díez Elorza, perpetrated by the terrorist gang ETA in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, on February 22, 2000.

Sin libertad: 20 años después

Amari

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.