Benefiet voor het BIC. Veganistische volkskeuken + infoavond over de onafhankelijkheidsstrijd en de repressie in het Baskenland.
* Uitleg door het Baskenland Informatie Centrum * Videobeelden op groot scherm. The Walls, inleiding over conflict in Baskenland, engels gesproken en Tioc Faidh ar La, over de Baskische politieke gevangenen, engels ondertiteld. * Twee Basken getuigen.
En de laatste informatie over de zaak Moreno/Garcia, 2 Baskische Belgen die Spanje graag in handen zou krijgen. Voor achtergrond: www.geenuitlevering.tk Vanaf 19.00 in De Zandberg, wijk Assebroek in Brugge. Vooraf inschrijven? Mail naar baskinfo@xs4all.nl
Zondag 18 april 2004, Utrecht
Filmhuis Pasthei, ACU
La Pelota Vasca, la piel contra la piedra - Julio Medem 2003 (The Basque Ball, skin against stone)
Spaans gesproken, engels ondertiteld 110 minuten, met pauze.
Over het politieke conflict in Baskenland. De omstreden documentaire laat verschillende visies over het conflict zien en beoogt te komen tot een dialoog. In Spanje probeerde de extreemrechtse Partido Popular de film verboden te krijgen, tot aan het internationaal filmfestival in Londen aan toe. Met inleiding, info-stand en bij behoefte discussie/toelichting door spreker uit Baskenland. Meer over de film: www.baskinfo.org/pages/nieuws/pelota.html
Aanvang film: 21.00 uur
Locatie: Politiek Cultureel Centrum ACU
Voorstraat 71, Utrecht
Entree: gratis
Web-site
Woensdag 21 april 2004, Nijmegen
Politiek Cafe de Klinker, Nijmegen
La Pelota Vasca, la piel contra la piedra - Julio Medem 2003 (The Basque Ball, skin against stone)
Spaans gesproken, engels ondertiteld 110 minuten, met pauze.
Over het politieke conflict in Baskenland. De omstreden documentaire laat verschillende visies over het conflict zien en beoogt te komen tot een dialoog. In Spanje probeerde de extreemrechtse Partido Popular de film verboden te krijgen, tot aan het internationaal filmfestival in Londen aan toe. Met inleiding, info-stand en bij behoefte discussie/toelichting door spreker uit Baskenland. Meer over de film
Aanvang film: 20.30
Locatie: Van Broeckhuysenstraat 46, Nijmegen
Entree: gratis http://grotebroek.nl/klinker
Gebeurtenissen rond La Pelota Vasca tot nu toe;
In Baskenland ontstaat in september 2003 ophef over de film 'La Pelota Vasca ' van de regisseur Julio Medem; het zou, vooral volgens PP 'ers, de slachtoffers van het 'terrorisme ' beledigen en sympathiek tegenover ETA 's doelen staan. In werkelijkheid laat de film een verscheidenheid aan politieke ideeën zien en behandelt het historische thema 's als de Carlistische oorlogen, de 'Fueros ' (de oude Baskische wetten), het tijdperk Franco, de overgang naar democratie en de huidige situatie met een open vizier en gericht op dialoog. De film kreeg bij de eerste vertoning op het filmfestival van Donostia een staande ovatie.
De Spaanse ambassade in Engeland heeft eind oktober gepoogd de vertoning van de Baskische film 'La Pelota Vasca, La Piel Contra La Piedra' van regisseur Julio Medem op het Film Festival in Londen te verhinderen. Dat mislukte en nu heeft Spanje haar subsidie ingetrokken, wat bedoeld was om de kosten van de Spaanse deelnemers te dekken.
Eind januari 2004 leidt de nominatie van de film 'La Pelota Vasca' van Julio Medem bij de uitreiking van de Spaanse filmprijzen in Madrid tot protesten. 'La Pelota Vasca', over het politieke conflict in Baskenland, leidde tot 2 demonstraties bij de ingang; zo'n 300 actievoerders beschuldigden Medem ervan dat hij de familie van slachtoffers en van de daders op hetzelfde plan stelt, dat hij kritiek zou hebben op de politie en dat hij het plan zou steunen voor meer onafhankelijkheid van Baskenland. Fans van Medem en de film demonstreerden voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting en debat. Uiteindelijk kreeg 'La Pelota Vasca' geen prijs, maar droeg Luis Tosar, die werd verkozen tot beste acteur, zijn prijs op aan Julio Medem.
Hieronder in het engels de ontstaansgeschiedenis van La Pelota Vasca, geschreven door de regisseur zelf, Julio Medem.
A bird is flying through a gorge
R O U T E
I. AITZ
Journey to the bottom of the sea
The first step I took towards THE BASQUE BALL, SKIN AGAINST STONE, was in 1996, when I left the Basque Country and went to live in Madrid. I moved for personal and professional reasons, but I have to confess that moving away from my homeland was a liberation for me; I had come to feel crushed by the ideas and the people that, with that old, stubborn dignity, have ensured that the Basque conflict continues. In that first year in Madrid, 1996 (when Aznar came to power) I wrote two scripts, one about love and the other about hate. In the first, based on the personal experience of lost love, I proposed the idealization of eternal love. When I read the first version (the worst and the most confused) of THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, I felt that I had no right to invent so much, so I put it on hold. For the next story I had to make an effort to free myself, to recover my own current feelings, so, without moving from Madrid, my life as a Basque came to me, it turned my mood inside out and I hated in order to write about hate. Then I managed to feel genuine, working on a script that I called AITZ, JOURNEY TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. At the end of that story about alleviating bitterness, I drowned the old Basque hatred in the depths of the sea. And, in passing, my own. The most appalling thing about that experience was reading the script; I discovered that not only had I myself hated in excess, left and right, something that was uncomfortably obvious, but I had also come to idealize hatred, that is, I had magnified it to the point of beautifying it. I saw that as an unhealthy sentiment and felt debased and unjust, so I put that script away with the conviction that I would never film it.
I immediately turned my mind to THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.. Idealizing love is much healthier than idealizing hatred.
II. AITOR
Skin against stone
After a long period in which I confess that I distanced myself, especially politically, from all things Basque, the rise in the ultra- Spanish nationalism of Aznar, which had gradually become unbearable in its totalitarian confrontation with Basque nationalism, meant that, after SEX AND LUCIA, I decided to try again to write something minimally fair about the Basque conflict. The first aim I set myself was not to hate, and I thought that if I managed it, that would be the best idealization of hatred. That approach led to AITOR, SKIN AGAINST STONE. While writing the first treatment of AITOR, the father of two very different children, I immediately remembered Manuel Irigibel, the grandfather in COWS (my first feature film), especially for his position, between two families who had long been rivals, and for his distance, on the threshold of death, within a forest that camouflages any inclination towards revenge. In the idea of skin against stone is the whack of the ball in the "pelota" court, the rage, the explosion of the echo, impotence, emptiness, suffering? and to trigger things off, the well known revenge. But after whacking it so much, Aitor's skin can penetrate the stone (like Manuel Irigibel's conscience penetrated the eye of a cow) until he manages to get the army of dead that fits inside his forest to sing to him in chorus of conciliation and forgiveness while they fall from the trees. Aitor would be impossible if it weren't because that new current of good energy is contained in an opera, secret and contagious. That is what I was doing, writing a life for Aitor from Madrid, when I witnessed with horror the electoral campaign for the Basque elections of May 13, 2001. All I can do is hope, with all my heart, that that spectacle may go down in History and be studied as an example of treacherous news reporting. Appalled, I witnessed the spectacle of calumny, lies and lynching carried out against Basque nationalism, a populist strategy of the Spanish Government, in which the PSOE joined (and practically all the media in Madrid), breaking and red
ucing the political options in the Basque Country to two groups, two irreconcilable national fronts.
Since then, the devastating way in which Spanish nationalism has criminalized Basque nationalism has been wreaking havoc with the exterior image of the Basque Country. Most Basques do not confuse nationalism with terrorism, but when traveling through Spain one sees that more and more Spaniards view it like that.
It was during the electoral campaign, which I had to endure as a Basque in the capital of Spain, that I decided to make a documentary film before the fictional one, and to which I immediately gave the name THE BASQUE BALL, in honor of Aitor, who is descended from famous "pelotaris" (ball players). I thought that the two films, the documentary and the fiction, should be brother and sister, for they had both come into existence in order to show with different eyes (and body and mind) my concern about the Basque conflict. Moreover, they could easily share the surname (coming from Aitor) of Skin Against Stone. I also thought it would be good for Aitor if I were to go back to the Basque Country in order to see, listen, change certain clichéd ideas, discover what I'd become after asking so many questions, and then rewrite his story based on my subsequent mood. I still don't know how much the documentary has helped the fiction, but what I am sure of is that if I hadn't first written the impossible AITOR (who doesn't know how to hate either to right or left) I wouldn't have been able to come up with the proper attitude for tackling THE BASQUE BALL. So the first thing I thought was that I should make the documentary as if I were Aitor, or rather that he would do it for me. I placed his personality, conciliatory, open to dialogue and even slightly unwitting, before my eyes in order to guide me and even protect me from what I knew (and know) lay ahead of me for getting myself into such a mess.
III. THE BASQUE BALL
Skin against stone
All the documentaries I have seen recently about the Basque conflict (in some it is even said that there is no conflict) deal with the victims of terrorism. I'll say immediately, so that there are no misunderstandings (or as vaccination against that plague of manufacturers of misunderstandings), that this situation of a lack of freedom and living under a death threat seems to me the worst and most urgent of the problems, but it is not the only one. After the devastating moral problem of violence, there is a serious, chronic disorder of political origin that in recent years has culminated in the present (political) war between the Spanish and Basque governments. I also want to make it clear that the very serious personal situation of the victims and those under threat evokes all my unconditional solidarity from the human point of view, but this does not necessarily include my ideological identification, especially when I watch (with horror) how some of them are manipulated and used politically; the PP has made a specialty of this as it is its great source of votes in Spain.
I have to admit that my personal search for non-hatred seems (to me) frivolous if I compare it to the situation of all those people who have profound reasons for hating; I am talking about those who have suffered in their own body and soul the violence connected with the Basque conflict (on both sides). In general, they and their justified hatred deserve all my respect, except for some particular cases, certain egomaniacal, dangerous missionaries of hatred.
As a Basque living in Madrid, I have missed other voices in the State media (practically in all of them) talking about the moral and political problem in my homeland, I mean the nuances, the whole range of colors that (deep down we all know) exists between white and black. It is deeply unfair and extremely dangerous to propose, from the position of power, this program of political reductionism aimed at creating supporters through social confusion, known as "the single line of thought" and based on the idea that "if you're not with me you're against me" (on the international front it meant "if you're not with me in favor of the war in Irak, you're an accomplice of Sadam Hussein").
The first thing I decided on with THE BASQUE BALL, SKIN AGAINST STONE, was to include the greatest possible number of different voices, like a human polyphony in which each person sings as he wishes. In a way, the opposite to a choir, or an anti- choir of voices in which the timbre of each one could be identified. I wanted individuals talking about their personal concern regarding a social problem like the one in the Basque Country. In a country so prone to collective commitment, the best thing that each person can bring to the group is his own peculiarity. I wanted to let all the possible parts of the Basque spectrum give their opinion, and then alternate their voices, creating the sensation that they could listen to one another, if they wanted, and above all understand themselves. With this simulated setting for dialogue, I wanted to create the best conditions for depolarizing, de-radicalizing or breaking the deadlock (even if it were only a sensation while watching the film) between the different parts of the Basque conflict.
When I went back to the Basque Country after seven years to make this film, I felt that I hadn't completely arrived, because I didn't want to; I was so anxious to maintain my non-hatred, to not return to the place from which I had set out, that I stayed at a fearful distance, as if sheltered in some forest on a mountain that was close at hand (to everything), up in a tree. That is to say, instead of entering completely into the Basque world, what I did was take people out of their usual surroundings, their homes or their offices, and bring them, one by one, to me. A strange privilege with which I was attempting to make it easy for me to listen to them. It was as if I didn't want to see the problem in the real setting where it occurs, within its framework of suffering, fear?, but only see the people who came to where I was waiting for them, in those locations (on the outskirts), natural surroundings in which it seems that any tension between humans is out of place. The fortuitous combination of backgrounds (forests, fields, mountains, cliff tops) which help to portray the most primitive Basque landscapes, drenched in sentiments as ancient as they are unchanging, helped me maintain a bird's eye view and thus persuade myself that I could see hatred without hating it.
With a team of ten people and two small digital cameras (DVCAM) we shot most of our film between May and July 2002, at a rate of two or three interviews per day, up to a total of over one hundred (two members of the team helped me to do the interviews). My approach with all those people was to learn as much as possible, that is, I was mentally prepared to understand whatever was necessary. My way of asking questions was always that of being in favor of the person being interviewed, looking at all times for their part of the truth, their deep-seated reasons, but without judging.
I admit that I felt certain gut movements in my analysis of the Basque problem, and afterwards, during the editing, those were the treasure I tried most to protect. I only hope that the ideas of whoever sees this film will be shook up as much as mine were. I felt it was necessary to stir up what was stagnant. There is a lot of mud in this matter.
I have to regret that the second week of shooting brought the first difficulties and even refusals to participate from people belonging to the two trends or sectors in which the extremes of the Basque conflict can be found. The PP categorically refused to have any of its members participate in the film. The production company insisted for over four months via countless telephone calls (there is a record), guaranteeing them a place and respect for their opinions, but it was useless. I particularly regret that three people, fundamental in my opinion, refused to participate; Fernando Sabater, Jon Juaristi and Cristina Cuesta (from the Collective of Victims of Terrorism). Obviously this was the big problem I had to face when it came to editing the documentary: trying not to lose the initial spirit of showing the greatest possible diversity of ideas as a basis for proposing dialogue. After going through a distressing period when I thought that the absences were going to ruin the film (I am convinced that in some cases that was their objective: not to be in it in order to dismiss the result as incomplete), I decided to devote myself completely to the rest, to the people who are in it, and put special value on their decision to participate.
I then saw myself diving with them into the air of a ravine, into the great gap that exists between the ETA milieu and the Government in Madrid. As the two opposite edges of the ravine have moved further apart, due to those disciplined people who tighten their ropes so much, people who are tied, the air in between (two thirds of the Basques) has become filled with turbulence which is more and more stifling and sad, producing an air that is not free, even for a bird. This air, bereft of father or mother, this way of flying that moves my film, is now called equidistance.
Even though I shall always regret not having been able to make the film I wanted, now that I have made the film they let me make, and even though I would still prefer that everyone had been in it, I feel I have the right to be whatever bird I choose, to be able to fly within the chasm, between those two blind mountains, and strive so that the absences not only do not unbalance the results but are expressive and fill with meaning a project that clamors precisely for dialogue between all the different sides. If we don't bring the edges together, how are we going to cure the wound?
IV. The editing
If during the shooting I preferred to reduce my importance in order to erase certain prejudices and feel even more open to influence, when I faced the 150 hours of material (between what we had filmed and archive images), I felt it was necessary that I assume that delicate position of absolute power conferred by editing, and moreover do so without any complexes. The paradox is that I had to grant myself the right to feel free, but at the same time I had never before seen myself less the master of what I was editing and more committed to so many people and ideas, some of them close to my own, but others very far removed. If until then I had allowed myself to shoot the film without judging, once editing began that would be impossible; editing is choosing. And to top it all I had decided that I had to edit a film like this on my own, because it was very difficult to transmit it or explain it to an editor (although there were people who helped me by selecting material or proposing parallel montages).
I didn't really know what the film would be like until I started editing it. When I edit a fiction film I usually have a fairly close idea of the result, as I have shot it from a script. In the case of this documentary film I felt a bit lost, or rather inundated by the abundant material, the overwhelming selection of marvelous, varied and necessary contributions and, consequently, the number of possible paths, in short, the multiple films contained therein.
The first editing guideline I established was to try to include the greatest number of different opinions, so from the outset I was choosing and extracting phrases, depending on the subject, and compressing them without worrying about the cuts within the shot "being noticed", eliminating pauses, hesitation, subordinated phrases. This "visible cutting" is a license I took with regard to anyone seeing the film, based on the delicate presumption that they would trust that I had always respected the context and meaning of the contribution. The only excuse for this blatant scissor work was to gain time (and space) and give the film a rhythmic intensity, almost without any pauses, which has to do with the oppressive dynamism that develops on court during a game of Basque "pelota". Thus, I interspersed "pelotaris" with different styles (hand ball, "cesta punta", "pala" or "remonte") to stress the ideas of rebound, or reply, or as punctuation marks, creating the sensation that the debate on ideas is taking place in the emptiness of a metaphorical ball court in which the function of the "pelotaris" is to push, almost hit the opinions forward, so that the next person receives them.
In this general documentary project entitled THE BASQUE BALL, SKIN AGAINST STONE, I first edited the five hours of the DVD version (which will go on sale next Christmas); then I gradually reduced this version, partly by removing figures, until I obtained the series of three 55-minute episodes that will be shown on television; and finally I edited the part that was most complicated, because of the delicate syntheses it required, the 115- minute feature film that will be shown on 35mm at a special screening within the Zabaltegi during the San Sebastian Festival, prior to its distribution in cinemas in Spain. This last edit, the real spearhead of the whole project (which also includes a Web page and a book) includes 69 of the 103 people interviewed.
The DVD, the series, the film, the book and the Web page are products that, although they are based on the same material, differ notably from each other not just because of the possibilities offered by their supports or because they have different amounts of content (in the number of people interviewed and contributions), but also because they have independent narrative structures, in keeping with their formats.
A key aspect in the editing (of the entire project) was the fact of being able to count on the music of Mikel Laboa from the outset. Days before the start of shooting, I was in the old quarter of San Sebastian with Mikel, an old friend of my mother's family, and he gave me his disc "Gernika zuzenean", which had just been released. I already knew almost all the songs, for they are classics of Mikel, but now, accompanied by the Youth Orchestra of the Basque Country and the Donostiarra Orfeón, as well as the themes by Pascal Gaigne, it seemed to me that, incredibly, the whole disc had been composed for my film. Or I could also say that, having heard it so many times while driving into the mountains to film interviews, it gradually led me to understand the tone and the atmospheric sound of the film, its particular vibration which, arising from the Basque undergrowth, reminded me of and gave me good ideas for Aitor's secret opera.
I also used his music to construct small edited pieces, intended to create sensations that, in a more cinematic language and as metaphors, help to describe certain peculiarities of the Basque conflict. In a documentary film in which there is no voiceover by a narrator, this montage with archive images from fiction films, documentaries and news reports -the latter generally from EITB (Basque Television)- has allowed me to take a look and thus give (without a voice) a personal view.
At this moment, I am convinced that one of the achievements of the documentary, as regards both form and content, is the presence of a genius of Basque music such as Mikel Laboa. Thanks to "his contribution", the bird, the one that those of us who are caught between the taut ropes long to be, exists and flies, and sees how the countryside moves, groaning, shuddering and suffering because the wound that we all bear is hurting it.
Julio Medem
San Sebastian/Donostia, September 10, 2003
