In 1955, fascinated by the ancient tradition of hunting pigeons with paddles and nets, Orson Welles directed the documentary The Land of Basques.
In the middle of nowhere, Rufi, an elderly woman who lives with a taxidermied dog and spends her days gambling online, has made indifference to the outside world her way of life. But her routine is disrupted by Bob, a hippie neighbour who has turned his motorhome into a private jungle. Amidst invasive plants, strange incense and fruit thrown with dubious intent, Rufi’s insular world begins to transform in a way that is as fascinating as it is unsettling.
After enduring many decades of embarrassment and discomfort, the filmmaker finally admits that possessing the most common name in the English-speaking world has had a profound impact on his psyche. Peppered with disparate fragments of autobiography, Being John Smith takes us on a confessional journey that reveals just how important a name can be.
Through a collage of personal archive footage and photographs, the history emerges of a small, metaphorical city where all the streets are named after poets. The town’s psychogeography defines the mental and emotional state of its inhabitants, who live in a utopian illusion founded on poetry.
On the coast of the French Basque Country, Euskara is not always passed down from one generation to the next. Where words fade away, Basque identity finds other ways to endure: in gestures, in the relationship with the sea, in moments shared around the table. It’s a fragile but tenacious transmission. One lived without words.
Aliou, a rising student at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, sells a painting of his deceased mother for 3,000 euros to a renowned collector. The delivery of the painting then becomes a long journey during which he will realise the weight of the money he earned.
Gaza, December 2023. A confrontation with a disturbing photograph on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.
Between 1934 and 1945, as Spain went through Republic, Civil War, and Franco’s dictatorship, hundreds of women walked the distance from Pamplona to Fort San Cristóbal (at the top of Mount Ezkaba, in the Spanish region of Navarra), bringing food, clean clothes, comfort and hope to the political prisoners incarcerated there. We retrace the path to the fort: as we look at what they once saw, their voices linger in the air. The place becomes a meeting point. Are we stepping on the same earth they walked? Who were they?
