SanSebastian

Dantza

Telmo Esnal

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Amaia Irigoyen, Gari Otamendi, Ainara Ranera, Joseba Astarbe, Josu Garate

Special Screenings

The storm breaks after a hard day's work in the fields. When the rain eases off life springs up from the previously barren land. Fruit grows and ripens, survives disease and becomes the apples which give life to cider. Then comes the time to harvest, offer toasts and celebrate love. A story about the cycle of life and death, the fight for survival. Where the passage of time is marked by the course of nature. And dance is the language chosen to tell its tale. Music accompanies daily routines: Life is rhythm! Universal themes, dressed here with particular symbology. Symbology which shows the hypnotic universe of traditional dance. A poetic song to tradition, the land, its people, myths and customs. A tale about the miracle of existence.

Oreina (The Deer)

Koldo Almandoz

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Laulad Ahmed, Patxi Bisquert, Ramón Agirre, Iraia Elías, Erika Olaizola

Khalil is a young man torn from his roots who lives on the edge of town, where the industrial estates merge into the river and the marshes. Khalil gets by as best he can and spends his time with an old poacher, who shares a house on the riverbank with a brother he hasn't spoken to in years. On the banks of the marshes, the tides mark the time of love and heartbreak, of friendship and revenge.  

592 metroz goiti (Above 592 metres)

Short film

Maddi Barber

Zinemira Kimuak

What life chances are left when a territory is completely altered? On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven towns and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land at the height of elevation 592 today marks a dividing line in the landscape of the valley. Below the level, the water; above, life goes on.

Un día más con vida / Another Day of Life

Raúl De la Fuente, Damian Nenow

Cast: Carlota, Comande Farrusco

Kapuscinski is a Polish reporter, idealist and friend of lost causes. In 1975 he travels to Angola, last battlefield of the Cold War, a place where the wrong greeting can cost you your life. The African country and the people he meets on his adventure, such as the charismatic guerrilla fighter Carlota, will change him forever. The suicide journey to the heart of darkness turn the journalist into an author.

Y en cada lenteja un dios

Miguel Ángel Jiménez Colmenar

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Luis Moya, Kiko Moya, Alberto Redrado, Francisco Moya, Ramiro Redrado

Luis, a professional screenwriter, returns to Cocentaina, the town of his birth, in the mountains of inland Alicante, to help his brother, Kiko Moya and his cousin, Alberto Redrado, write a book about the cuisine in the restaurant run by their family: L’Escaleta, which obtained the recognition of two prized Michelin stars and is among the 25 best restaurants in Spain and Portugal. A year passes and, after its launch, this entire uncertain voyage, this entire search, Luis can now re-connect with his family and the spectator to experience like never before the real life behind a Michelin 2-star restaurant, brought to us by an entire family always committed to its passion for gastronomy and determined to give people the very best of themselves.

Bihar dok 13

Aitor Bereziartua, Ander Iriarte

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Chem Wei, Maria Torrecillas, Pau Rull, Jordi Bross, Maria Zibara, Jose Mari Aizega, Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, Jon Echeverria Plazaola, Oreka Tx, Eneritz Furiyak, Andoni Egaña, Joseba Iratzoki, Ion Lopez, Mikel Azpiroz, Elena Setien, Jabi Moreno, Mikel Chillida, John Berkouth, Jose Luis Zumeta, Delorean

Closing Night Film

At the Basque Culinary Center, several students of cutting-edge gastronomy from all over the world will travel back into the past to create the menu, Bihar dok 13. On the way, they will travel to the Basque Country of 1966 as a starting point for getting to know the decade that would change everything. With five special events, we will discover the movements Gaur, Ez dok amairu and the spiritual father of the BCC, Basque Nouvelle Cuisine. Having internalised said events, they will have to create a gastronomic menu after assigning leaderships. The documentary will show us the importance of said movements in Basque society, through the events and eyes of the students, as well as how the chefs have continued to develop their creative process. Lastly, the meal organised to taste the “Bihar dok amairu” menu prepared by the young chefs will enjoy the company of the most important characters of Basque culture, uniting new artists and musics. One generation will symbolically open the doors to the next.

Mudar la piel (The Spy Within)

Ana Schulz, Cristóbal Fernández

Cast: Juan Gutiérrez, Frauke Schulz Utermöhl, Mingo Ràfols, Ana Schulz

Opening Night Film

Juan is a mediator who tried to achieve peace between ETA and the Spanish Government. Roberto is a spy with the secret services who infiltrated his life for years. Mudar la piel is the story of Juan, the director’s father, and Roberto, the man who spied on him. The two cultivate an unusual friendship despite the betrayal. Mudar la piel (The Spy Whithin) is also the chronicle of the filmmakers’ relationship with the spy and of how difficult they found it to trap his slippery identity.

© Black is Beltza AIE

Black is Beltza

Fermin Muguruza

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Unax Ugalde, Isaach de Bankole, Iseo, Sergi López, Ramón Agirre, Jorge Perugorría, Angelo Moore, Maria de Medeiros, Emma Suárez, Óscar Jaenada, Rossy de Palma, Ramón Barea, Hamid Krim, Josean Bengoetxea, Willy Toledo, Ander Lipus

Closing Night Film

October 1965. The giant figures of San Fermín are invited to parade on New York’s Fifth Avenue, but not all of them can participate: for racial reasons, North American leaders have forbidden the black giants to participate in the event. Taking their inspiration from true events, Muguruza, Cano and Alderete tell the story of Manex Unanue, a fictional character given the task of carrying one of those black giants. Bemoaning the fact that his companions have accepted the decision imposed on them, Manex decides not to return home. Seen through the young boy’s eyes, we discover the events that revolutionised the society of the mid-‘60s: demonstrations after the death of Malcolm X, the bizarre atmosphere of Warhol’s workshop, the relationship woven between the Black Panthers and the Cuban secret service and the early days of the hippy movement, enveloped in the psychedelic atmosphere of the first music macrofestivals.

Bajo la piel de lobo (The Skin of the Wolf)

Samuel Fuentes

Cast: Mario Casas, Irene Escolar, Ruth Díaz, Quimet Pla, Josean Bengoetxea, Kandido Uranga

Bajo la piel de lobo (The Skin of the Wolf ) tells the tale of a solitary trapper. Martinón is the last inhabitant of a remote mountain village. His only contact with other humans takes place in spring, when he comes down into the valley to trade with the skins of the animals he traps. However, with the arrival of a woman into his life, he will start to experience new feelings. This singular encounter will force him to choose between revealing his vulnerability or abandoning himself to his wildest side.

Basque Selfie

Joaquín Calderón

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Agus Barandiaran, Itziar Ituño, Itziar Aizpuru, Kandido Uranga, Aizpe Goenaga, Aitor Merino, Felix Linares, Alberto Santana, Edorta Jiménez, Mikel Belascoain, Amaia Madinabeitia, Joaquín Calderón, Sandra Iraizoz, Kepa Baraiazarra, Txetxu Ayestarán, Oier Bizcarra, Koldo Martinez Urionabarrenetxea, Sorkunde Barandiaran

Agus Barandiaran, ambassador of traditional Basque music and dance all over the world, is confronted with the worst thing that can happen to a Basque person: the demolition of his 1540 baserri (family farmhouse) to make way for a new road. Agus must fight the circumstances to try and protect his roots, because in the Basque culture "etxea" means much more than four walls. Basque selfie is a sad but edifying story articulated around tradition, the tradition of keeping the signs of one’s own identity alive.

Baúles (Chests)

Juanmi Gutiérrez

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: José Alonso López, Paco Pavón, Maruja Cordero

The year 1931. In Lois, a small Spanish town in the mountains of León, Julián López packs his belongings into an enormous trunk and, without telling his wife Candelas, sets out for Mexico. The year 1970. Candelas has been dead for three years. Suddenly a letter arrives in Lois from Mexico, announcing Julián’s death. In a corner of the family home in Riaño they find a trunk similar to the one Julián had taken to Mexico.

Errementari (Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil)

Cast: Kandido Uranga, Eneko Sagardoy, Uma Bracaglia, Ramón Agirre, Josean Bengoetxea, José Ramón Argoitia, Itziar Ituño, Gorka Aguinagalde, Gotzon Sánchez

Eight years have passed since the First Carlist War of 1833. In a small Álava village, a government commissioner called Alfredo investigates an occurrence which will take him to a sinister smithery deep in the forest, home to a dangerous and solitary blacksmith called Patxi. The locals tell dark tales related to thefts, murders and pacts with the Devil. Until one day, by chance, a little orphaned girl called Usue sneaks into the mysterious forge, uncovering the terrible truth hidden behind Patxi the Blacksmith.

Gallo

Antonio Díaz Huerta

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Aitor Francesena

Aitor was born with congenital glaucoma which caused the loss of sight in his right eye when he was only fourteen. Although doctors recommended that he stop surfing, he decided not to listen to their advice and finally lost his sight completely in a fateful surfing accident. He was 39. Today, 5 years after the accident, Aitor wants to demonstrate that people with disabilities can beat any challenge they set themselves; however, to do it, he will have to prepare himself physically and mentally. He will above all have to overcome his doubts and fears in order to relive the accident that left him blind.

Gure Oroitzapenak

Oskar Alegria, Özcan Alper, Asier Altuna Iza, Mireia Gabilondo, Eugène Green, Itziar Leemans, Josu Martinez, Fermin Muguruza, Ane Muñoz Mitxelena, Maider Oleaga, Carlos Machado Quintela, Maialen Sarasua

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

The countenance of Joseba Sarrionandia is multi-faceted, not only for having dabbled in all literary forms of expression, but for having been capable of creating his own imagery, composed of endless worlds. Thus, several of the elements appearing in the literary world will undoubtedly appear here: the sea, the port, childhood, trains, uprooting, war, destruction, love, drifting, pain, fantasy, mystery, initiation, torture...

Izaro

Txuspo Poyo

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Izaro Ieregi, Izaro Aperribai

Izaro is a documentary/essay which updates a fragmented portrait of the identity, history and legacy of Izaro Island until its diaspora. The name ‘Izaro’ has germinated in practices of power, in legal claims to the Island ownership, in the shape of tile-throwing fiestas, in the film production company Ízaro Films Presenta, with its own lookout point, Windsor Tower, in the proper names of both women and men and in a state-of-the-art tuna fishing boat built in the Bermeo shipyards, fishing in waters of the Indian Ocean flying the flag of the Seychelles.

Lady Off

David Rodríguez Losada

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Marta Fuenar, Mateu Bosch

Ana is a young actress who is unfortunately unable to professionally dedicate herself to acting. In fact, she must combine the small theatre productions in which she finds space with her part-time job as a shop assistant, working Monday to Saturday mornings. Now Ana is busy preparing a new role: she has been selected to play Lady Anne in a modest performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III, to run in a small off theatre in Madrid. Despite the humbleness of the production, Ana finds the opportunity exciting; but her excitement will soon clash with the steely vision of the play’s director, who conceives Lady Anne as nothing more than a toy that Richard must (metaphorically) asphyxiate, humiliate and even abuse on stage.

La noche nos lleva (The Night Takes Us)

David González Rudiez

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Cast: Carlos Algaba, Cristóbal Araque, Cruz López-Cortón, Ana Rodríguez Calvo, Soraya Peña, Luis Alonso

Jorge was a professional basketball player until the age of thirty-five. Now he’s thirty-seven and doesn’t know what to do with the rest of his life. Every day he gets up late, plays at video games, stuffs himself with fast food and goes out to walk until nightfall. He has very little contact with other people and lives in a bubble he will try to burst when he realises that perhaps he has gone too far in his isolation.

Margolaria / The Painter

Oier Aranzabal

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

This is the tale of a voyage which began one morning with a Skype conversation between the musician Mikel Urdangarin and the artist Alain Urrutia. The painter will give Mikel one of his paintings as a gift, but on one condition: the musician will have to go and fetch it in London, by ferry, crossing the sea. Taking the journey as an excuse, we will enter the everyday life of an artist committed to living from his work until reaching the key hidden in the centre of every artist’s labyrinth, since all searches are in fact a voyage; the creation process in itself is a voyage.

592 metroz goiti (Above 592 metres)

Short film

Maddi Barber

Zinemira Kimuak

What life chances are left when a territory is completely altered? On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven towns and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land at the height of elevation 592 today marks a dividing line in the landscape of the valley. Below the level, the water; above, life goes on.

© Adabaki Ekozipenak

Ama (Mother)

Short film

Josu Martinez

Cast: Bea Kurutxarri, Mila Arrangoitz, Aline Etxeberri, Jojo Bidart, Gabriel Durruti, Manex Bidart

Zinemira Kimuak

It is the summer of 1915. In a village in the French Basque Pyrenees, a woman lives waiting for a letter.

© Txintxua FIlms

Ancora Lucciole / Still Fireflies

Short film

Maria Elorza

Zinemira Kimuak

In 1972, in one of his best-known articles, Pier Paolo Pasolini spoke of the disappearance of fireflies. A few months later he was murdered. Since then the fireflies have continued to disappear. But there are still people who remember them.

© Limbus Filmak

Espedizio handia (The Great Expedition)

Short film

Iban del Campo

Cast: Familia L’Estrange

Zinemira Kimuak

Human beings want to be more than they are, more than stardust.

© Kinoskopik Film Produktion

Kafenio Kastello

Short film

Miguel Ángel Jiménez

Zinemira Kimuak

The centre of Athens. Surrounded by a world in crisis and generalised destruction, a small group of characters resist the end towards which they seem inevitably to be heading. The film looks at fraternity and the desire not to throw in the towel.

© ESCAC

No me despertéis (Don’t Wake Me Up)

Short film

Sara Fantova

Cast: Ibone Ajuria, Josean Bengoetxea, Maddi Gutierrez, Eder Pastor, Malen Razkin, Amets Zulueta, Itziar Lazkano

Zinemira Kimuak

Bilbao, 2009. Jone is a teenager in the 4th year of secondary school. In her school there is a strong activist and Basque nationalist atmosphere. One day her father takes a political post in the Basque Government, which means the need to have a bodyguard and give up the life they had been living until then.

© Zazpi T'erdi

Zain (Waiting)

Short film

Pello Gutiérrez

Cast: Javier Barandiaran, Ainhoa Alberdi

Zinemira Kimuak

«Don’t ask me about the hidden reason of all dark things, or where the path of fickle time leads us.»

Jainkoak ez dit barkatzen / God doesn´t forgive me

Josu Martínez

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

Lezo Urreiztieta was a 16th-century pirate, born by mistake in 1907. Risking his life, he saved that of hundreds of people; he negotiated with foreign governments for a free Basque Country; he managed to slip 17 boats full of weapons into Bilbao during the Civil War; he was on the point of killing Franco... Forty years after his death, the tape recorder of writer Martin Ugalde reveals his incredible story told in the voice of the actual protagonist. Starting with unpublished conversations between the two held from 1975 to 1978, this film sheds light on the testimony of a key character in 20th century Basque history.

Vitoria, 3 de marzo (A March to Remember)

Víctor Cabaco

Competes for the Irizar Basque Film Award

During the events of 3 March 1976 in Vitoria, five workers were killed by the police after a long strike. Begoña, a young middle-class girl, will live in first person those events which shook “a city where nothing ever happens.” In an increasingly bitter conflict, both she and her family will be forced to take sides. Finally, after the massacre, Begoña, the city and the country will never be the same again. A real story with real characters.

Ane & Peio, maitasun istorio bat piper artean (Ane & Peio, a Paprika Love Story)

Lara Izagirre

Ane is 30 years old and a journalist. Her dream has always been to be a travel writer and to spend her life globetrotting. Her hopes, however, do not correspond to reality. She lives in Amorebieta, a small town in Bizkaia, and shares a flat with her grandfather. She doesn’t have a penny to her name, and her journalist work consists of writing the horoscope for a local magazine in exchange for 150 euros a month. However, an old car and a wad of notes will give Ane the chance to set out on her first major voyage. A road trip which will turn into an exciting adventure, in which Ane will secretly try to find Peio, her first love, a man she hasn’t seen since she was 12 years old.