Pelota (1983)
Genre : Documentary
Runtime : 47M
Director : Jørgen Leth, Ole John
Synopsis
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.
'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.
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…
Basque Country, Spain, 1843. A police constable arrives at a small village in Álava to investigate a mysterious blacksmith who lives alone deep in the woods.
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, 2019. Two corpses appear in the crypt of the Old Cathedral. Police officer Unai López de Ayala, an expert in criminal profiling, must hunt down the ritual murderer who has been terrorizing the city for two decades.
Amaia after breaking up with Rafa, falls in love with a Catalonian. Koldo, her father, goes to Sevilla to persuade Rafa to go to Catalonia and take Amaia's heart back.
Rafael, a Seville citizen who has never left the Spanish region of Andalucia, decides to leave his homeland to follow Amaia, a Basque girl unlike other women he has known.
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.
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.
During WW 2, a Basque shepherd is approached by the underground, who wants him to lead a scientist and his family across the Pyrenees. While being pursued by a sadistic German.
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.
Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.
Juan Martin, a young boy from San Sebastian, decides to spend the summer in a remote hillside farmhouse to improve his Basque. But there he discovers that the language they use has little in common with his classroom learnings.
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.
It's the last night of the graduation trip. An excellent opportunity for a young boy to declare his love to Haizea, the girl he likes. But he doesn't know how to do it. Or yes. Yes, he does. He knows too many ways to do it.
When the rain ends, life sprouts from the earth. A fruit grows and becomes the apple that gives life to the cider. Then comes the time of harvest, toasting and celebrating love. A story about the cycle of life and death, of the struggle for survival. Where the passage of time is marked by the course of nature, music and dance.
Manu Aranguren is a Basque politician who acts as a mediator for the Spanish government in its negotiations with ETA. Far from being a solemn, calculated occasion, unexpected occurrences, slip-ups or misunderstandings soon kick in to influence the dialogue. And the personal relationship between negotiators will be key in solving the conflict.
Is it possible to travel twice to the same memory? The filmmaker built a cabin on an isolated riverbank, just opposite his childhood island, which had disappeared under the water after the construction of a dam. The goal was to go back to that place, which had become invisible. Only the trees of the island where he’d played stood firm in the middle of the water, like the masts of a broken toy boat, so the air was the only space left, the only vestige of the past to be conquered. This film is a diary of a castaway in memories: four months of a Walden experience in a lost paradise with two hens, a small vegetable garden and a clock that stopped forever at 11.36 and 23 seconds.
A band of Basque immigrants treks through the Old West toward California, where they hope to put down roots and open wineries. When the group's leader dies, his widow Gabrielle marries his brother in accordance with Basque tradition. But it's a loveless union; Gabrielle is smitten with Lon Bennett, the scout who's been hired to guide them on their journey.
In the mountains of the Basque Country, a mother and her daughter take shelter in a ruined hut that seems uninhabited.
Vitoria, Basque Country, Spain, March 3rd, 1976. After several months of protests demanding decent working conditions, representatives of struggling workers call for a general strike. In the church of San Francisco, in the working class neighborhood of Zaramaga, thousands of workers fill the temple in assembly. Outside, many more people gather and, in the middle, about a hundred heavily armed police officers wait to act.