Seventeen Basque productions make up the programme of the 69th edition
The Kimuak programme will receive the Zinemira award for its work
Seventeen works –13 features, one short, one series, one film at the post-production stage and one project– complete the Basque participation in San Sebastian Festival’s 69th edition, distributed over the Official Selection, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Zinemira, the Basque Cinema and EiTB galas, WIP Europa and Ikusmira Berriak.
Zinemira, the section specifically dedicated to Basque cinema, organised by the San Sebastian Festival and the Basque Government Department of Culture with the sponsorship of Irizar and EITB, has the collaboration of the Filmoteca Vasca, the EPE/APV and IBAIA producers’ associations, and Zineuskadi. This edition of Zinemira includes eleven fiction and non-fiction titles. Seven of these, being world premieres at the Festival, will compete for the Irizar Basque Cinema Award together with another two works present in the other Festival sections. A total of 9 productions will therefore compete for the award of 20,000 euros going to the production company or companies of the winning film.
Javier Corcuera (Lima, 1967), winner of a Goya, a Silver Biznaga in Malaga and a Special Mention from the FIPRESCI jury in San Sebastian for La espalda del mundo (Zabaltegi-New Directors, 2000), will return to the Festival with No somos nada / We Are Nothing, a non-fiction movie shot during the farewell tour of La Polla Records, the historic punk band fronted by Evaristo Páramos.
The premier of Aztarnak – Huellas / Imprints, the second feature from Maru Solores (San Sebastian, 1968) following Camera obscura (Zinemira, 2012), will close Zinemira. The film from the author of the prize-winning short film Dortoka uhartea (La isla de la tortuga, 2002) reflects on the imprints left upon us by the years of our childhood of which we have no recollection.
Filmmakers Iñaki Alforja (Pamplona, 1967) and Iban Toledo (Beasain, 1978) put their names to Bolante baten historia / Story of a Steering Wheel (Historia de un volante), investigating the disappearance of José Miguel Etxeberria Álvarez, alias Naparra, and the more than 40-year search for his body by his family, which will have its premiere at the Festival.
El radioaficionado / The Radio Amateur is the first feature film from Iker Elorrieta (Bilbao, 1977), author of non-fiction works including the award-winning I Forgot Myself Somewhere (2017). El radioaficionado portrays a man of some 30 years of age with autism who returns to the place of his birth following his mother’s death.
The sound artist, music producer and researcher Xabier Erkizia (Lesaka, Navarre, 1975), responsible for the sound of Basque productions including Converso (2017) and Urpean lurra (2019), makes his directorial debut with O Gemer / The Moaning (El gemir), an experimental film taking its inspiration from the peculiar sound made by ox carts.
Maider Oleaga (Bilbao, 1976) has presented several of her films at the Festival, including Muga deitzen da pausoa / Stepping into the Boundary (Zinemira, 2016), a project developed at the first edition of the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme. In San Sebastian, Oleaga will premiere Kuartk Valley, the story of a western shot in a valley of Álava with the help of the locals.
Hernán Zin (Buenos Aires, 1971), author of the award-winning documentaries Nacido en Gaza (2014), Nacido en Siria (Born in Syria, 2016) and Morir para contar (Dying to Tell, 2018), has followed the band Belako throughout 2020: from the cancellation of their 60 scheduled concerts to their reinvention in the context of the pandemic with a tour in drive-in cinemas. Pandemic Tour 2020 Belako accompanies Josu Ximun Billelabeitia, Lore Nekane Billelabeitia, Cris Lizarraga and Lander Zalakain, the members of the band from Mungia.
The Basque Cinema Gala will host the premiere of Hondalea: Abismo marino / Hondalea: Marine Abyss, a non-fiction film directed by Asier Altuna (Bergara, Gipuzkoa, 1969) on the work created by the artist Cristina Iglesias for Santa Clara Island in San Sebastian. Altuna returns to the Festival after participating in the Official Selection, where he competed with Amama (Irizar Award, 2015) and screened Bertsolari (2011) out of competition, and in New Directors and the Basque Cinema Gala, where he presented, respectively Aupa Etxebeste! (Youth Award, 2005) and Agur Etxebeste! (2019), both co-directed with Telmo Esnal. Last year he opened the Culinary Zinema section with another non-fiction film, ARZAK Since 1897.
Also competing for the Irizar Cinema Award is Maixabel. In the film by Icíar Bollaín (Madrid, 1967) competing in the Official Selection, Blanca Portillo portrays the widow of the socialist leader murdered by ETA, Juan Mari Jáuregui. Luis Tosar plays one of those responsible for the assassination in a film recreating the restorative meetings promoted in 2011 under the so-called ‘Nanclares Way’ which enabled the meeting in prison between Maixabel Lasa and her husband’s killers.
Out of competition
The EiTB Gala will include the presentation of the first episode in the Irabazi arte series, directed by Javier García de Vicuña and produced by Pausoka, about a young female footballer who loses her mother and returns from Barcelona to her hometown in the Basque Country.
Aitor Merino (San Sebastian, 1972), who joined his sister Amaia to co-direct Asier ETA biok / Asier and I, Irizar Basque Cinema Award in 2013, will present Fantasía, following its release at Malaga Festival. Fantasía, whose project was also developed at the first edition of Ikusmira Berriak, follows the story of a family through their memories and voyage on a cruise ship.
Igor Legarreta (Leioa, Bizkaia, 1973) will present his second feature film Ilargi guztiak. Todas las lunas / All the Moons, after screening at Canada’s Fantasia Festival and opening the FANT in Bilbao. Starring Itziar Ituño, Haizea Carneros and Josean Bengoetxea, this fable on death and immortality is set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Paperezko hegoak (Alas de Papel) is the latest work by the filmmaker, professor and screenwriter Josu Martínez (Bilbao, 1986) and the directorial debut of the journalist and writer Samara Velte (Zarautz, 1991). Martínez and Velte use testimonials and unseen footage to document the operation instigated against the newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria.
Mireia Gabilondo (Bergara, 1965), who has presented several of her films at San Sebastian Festival, such as Amaren eskuak / My Mother’s Hands (Zinemira 2013), has adapted the play Erlauntza / The Hive with Kepa Errasti, author of the playwright. Erlauntza focusses on a group of childhood friends – played by Itziar Atienza, Naiara Arnedo, Sara Cózar, Getari Etxegarai, Aitziber Garmendia and Leire Ruiz – as they celebrate a hen night at a house in the country.
Another Basque production in the Festival programme not competing for the Irizar Basque Cinema Award due to having had its release prior to its presentation at San Sebastian, is Heltzear, which will screen in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera following its participation in the Orizzonti short film competition at Venice Festival. The short film from Mikel Gurrea (San Sebastian, 1985) has also been selected for the 2021 Kimuak catalogue. The filmmaker from San Sebastian, who completed the Ikusmira Berriak project residency, narrates a tale of overcoming the odds in a context of political violence.
In addition, two Basque film projects will also feature in the programme of the Festival’s 69th edition. Misión a Marte / Mission to Mars, the debut film from the Catalan Amat Vallmajor del Pozo (Verges, 1996) will participate in WIP Europa, the Festival’s work in progress section for European productions. Vallmajor del Pozo, an alumni of the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, specialising in Filmmaking, sets his first film in a post-apocalyptic Basque Country. Another Zine Eskola alumni in the Filmmaking speciality, Marina Palacio (San Sebastian, 1996) brings her first feature film, Y así seguirán las cosas / And Thus It Will Go Oncurrently underway in project format at the Ikusmira Berriak residencies, following her award-winning short film Ya no duermo (Zabaltegi-Tabakalera and Kimuak, 2020).
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Basque artists
The Basque news conference at the Festival’s 69th edition held today in Tabakalera also served to present the new poster to show at the Basque Cinema Gala. The painter from Gipuzkoa Udane Juaristi (Azkoitia, 1985) has created the image to accompany Basque productions in coming years. For her part, the artist and filmmaker Bego Vicario (Caracas, 1962) has designed the Perlak poster to provide the setting for the presentation of films at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.
These commissions correspond to the Festival’s philosophy to include the different disciplines of Basque art in the event. Isabel Herguera, in 2015, and Izibene Oñederra in 2016, were the first artists to design the Basque Cinema and Perlak posters, respectively. This edition the creations of Udane Juaristi and Bego Vicario take up the baton.
ZINEMIRA
Section dedicated to Basque film organised by the San Sebastian Festival and the Basque Government Department of Culture, with the sponsorship of Irizar and EITB; and the collaboration of the Filmoteca Vasca, EPE/AVE, IBAIA and Zineuskadi.
Country(ies) of production: Spain – Peru
La Polla Records, one of the most legendary punk bands, returns to bid its farewell. To celebrate the group’s last tour, its singer, Evaristo Páramos, revives 40 years of history from his town in the Basque Country. This is the extraordinary tale of villagers who revolutionised incensed music with songs turned into hymns by their thousands of followers.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
The voice of a new-born baby and that of a mother accompany us on the journey to that long-forgotten period. The elements of nature dialogue with the landscapes and imprints of the body. We are accompanied on the way by the voices of experts, like detectives investigating fingerprints, and other families will do the same. Meanwhile, the search will prompt the mother narrator to look into her own history. Questions will emerge which, far from having a single answer, invite us to reflect on the adults of the future.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
A forced disappearance doesn’t only end with the life of the person who has disappeared, but generates, like the ripples of a stone thrown into water, an enormous emotional scar in their families and in society. In the early 80s, José Miguel Etxeberria Álvarez, alias ‘Naparra’, a member of the Autonomous Anti-capitalist Commandos, was disappeared. Between crossed statements, numerous vindications and judicial indifference, his family will try to find an answer for his disappearance. More than forty years later, Eneko has taken up the baton of the search for his brother to close the wound that has remained open for so many years.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Following his mother’s death, Nicolas, a young 30-year-old with autism, decides to return to his hometown. He wants to fulfil a mission, to get onto the high seas in two days. There he meets Ane, his only childhood friend, and enlists her help. But Niko’s barriers when it comes to communicating won’t make it easy for him. It turns out that not everybody is on the same wavelength.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
A group of childhood friends have rented a country house for a hen night. But the years have taken their toll and despite the very strong ties between them, nothing is what it used to be; or maybe it is… What was initially going to be a mad weekend will become a little crazier if possible; dirty linen, things they never said to one another, confessions, alcohol, drugs and a beehive. They say that in the animal kingdom the bees are the beings that communicate best. And apparently they do it by dancing…
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Siblings Amaia and Aitor are about to turn fifty. They have no children. From a very young age they have lived apart from their parents, Kontxi and Iñaki, now retired. One summer they meet on the cruise ship Fantasía. On the high seas time seems to have stopped, but beyond the horizon reality continues to forge its way ahead tirelessly.
Country(ies) of production: Spain – France
During the death throes of the last Carlist war, a young girl is rescued from an orphanage by a mysterious woman who lives deep in the forest. Badly wounded and feeling herself to be on the edge of death, the girl will see the woman as an angel who has come to take her up to heaven… Before long she discovers that the strange being has given her eternal life, obliging her to live in the darkness of the night, “eternally” together. In this new condition, she will have to deal with the painful passing of time enclosed in a girl’s body, until she meets Cándido, a poor man who will take her into his home as his own daughter and who will accompany her in the fight against her own nature and in the dream of recovering the life snatched from her. Ilargi Guztiak. Todas las lunas is a fantastic fable reflecting on the fear of death and immortality.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
In late 2005 in Kuartango, a remote valley in the province of Álava (Basque Country). Two men pledge to make an old dream come true: to shoot a western. With neither money nor technical crew, they convince their community to play some of the characters in the film. Algo más que morir, the first Basque western, premiered at the Almería Western Film Festival in 2014, carrying off two of the biggest awards. The legend of this collective adventure finally brought to light by Kuartk Valley is now forged.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
O gemer is an experimental film on the geographic and historical voyage of the peculiar sound known as “Basque ox carts”. Said sound, which could be heard until the decade of the 60s in part of the Bay of Biscay, has now practically disappeared from the Iberian peninsula. The film travels from the silence of the sound in our territory today, until its reappearance, following years of research, in the central area of Brazil. This particular screeching sound (yet in tune) made by the cart when moving forward, questions our senses and our experience of what the world that we see sounds like.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
In mid-March 2020 covid-19 stopped the world. And it stopped the music too. Unceremoniously. We were all locked down in our homes. Belako, the band from Bizkaia to have reaped all Music Awards in Spain, BMG’s major bet in Europe and Mexico for 2020, having given the first concert in their world tour, had to come home after the President of the USA, Donald Trump, issued a message to close all borders, effectively cancelling the more than 60 concerts they had planned for the year 2020. How they lived those months. How they communicated with one another from the isolation of their homes. How they reinvented themselves. How they created the first world tour mid-pandemic by coming up with a road movie round drive-in cinemas in camper vans that surprised media throughout Europe. And how they tackled the challenge and moved forward with strength, imagination and enthusiasm.
Country(ies) of production: Spain
How did the operation against Euskaldunon Egunkaria come about? Why did the Spanish state decide to attack it? What did they hope to achieve by arresting, torturing and publicly humiliating known and prestigious people in the field of Basque cultural activity? Why did the Civil Guard close the only newspaper in the Basque language? This documentary tries to find answers to these questions, focussing on the different keys and factors of the period. The result of an exhaustive investigation, through the testimonials of front-line personalities and thanks to unseen images taken from the archives of the newspaper itself, the film adopts the angle of uncovering perspectives and details unknown until now.
BASQUE FILM GALA
Country(ies) of production: Spain
The sculptor Cristina Iglesias has made what is probably the most important work in her career to date, Hondalea. Her intervention in the Lighthouse on San Sebastian’s Santa Clara Island. Taking her inspiration from the island’s wild nature and the peculiar geology of the Basque coast, the sculpture by Cristina Iglesias transforms the interior of the lighthouse, now restored and converted into a vertiginous sculptural space. The cast-metal geological strata and the water flowing to the rhythm of the waves and the tides will offer the visitor a profound experience. This film looks at the process of building the work.
EITB GALA
Country(ies) of production:
Arene is a teenage footballer who lives in Barcelona. Sadly, her mother dies and the family is devastated. Peio, Arene’s father, decides to return to his hometown − in the Basque Country − and start a new life. New challenges lie in store for Arene, like getting used to living with her grandfather and making new friends, while she gets over the loss of her mother. But, above all, she will have to deal with the prejudice of many to create the town’s first women’s football team. First episode of Irabazi arte series.
OFFICIAL SELECTION – In competition
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Maixabel Lasa lost her husband, Juan María Jáuregui, assassinated by ETA in 2000. Eleven years later, she receives an unusual request: One of the murderers has asked to meet her in the Nanclares de la Oca prison in Álava, where he is serving a sentence after having severed ties with the terrorist gang. Despite the doubts and the immense pain, Maixabel Lasa agrees to meet face to face with the people who ended in cold blood with the life of who had been her partner since the age of sixteen. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” she says when asked about the reasons for sitting in front of her husband’s killer.
ZABALTEGI-TABAKALERA
Country(ies) of production: Spain
San Sebastian, the year 2000. The Basque conflict is ongoing. While writing a letter to her absent brother, Sara, a 15-year-old mountain climber, trains for the hardest ascent of her life.
WIP Europa
Country(ies) of production: Spain
In a post-apocalyptic Basque Country, two brothers leave on a mission to Mars. A futuristic road trip through a family past. Txomin, an unemployed Basque archaeologist, receives a commission to provide an expert’s report on Mars. With his brother Gene at the wheel, they leave from Eibar on an adventure through northern Spain. When Gene’s frail health and a mysterious sudden toxic mist makes them lose their way, they turn to their sister Mila. The reunion between the three awakens old family reproaches as Gene’s health continues to decline. With the help of a few ghosts and of Jesus Christ himself, the two brothers decide to complete their mission and make it to Mars.
IKUSMIRA BERRIAK
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Y así seguirán las cosas is a project that hovers between fiction and reality. The aim is to complete it over 5 years, in a filming process that will remain open to the lives of its protagonists: a group of children who will live and stop living in a small town in Tierra de Campos. All of their lives will change and the film will change with them.
Zinemira Award: Kimuak
The Zinemira Award is the honorary accolade given by San Sebastian Festival and the EPE/APV and IBAIA producers’ associations to the career of an outstanding personality, programme or institution of Basque cinema. Until now it has gone to Imanol Uribe (2009), Álex Angulo (2010), Elías Querejeta (2011), Michel Gaztambide (2012), Juanba Berasategi (2013), Pedro Olea (2014), Karmele Soler (2015), Ramón Barea (2016), Julia Juaniz (2017), Ramón Agirre (2018), Jose María Txepe Lara (2019) and Sara Bilbatua (2020). This year the Festival and the producers’ associations have decided to pay tribute to Kimuak, the programme providing support to Basque short films promoted by the Basque Government Department of Culture, the Filmoteca Vasca and the Etxepare Institute.
The initiative took its first steps in 1998 at a moment of incipient prosperity for Basque short films: Bego Vicario received the Goya for Best Animated Short Film in 1996 for Pregunta por mí; and Razielen itzulera / Raziel’s Return, by Koldo Almandoz, was included in the Zabaltegi section of San Sebastian Festival in 1997; while in 1998, Por un infante difunto, by Tinieblas González, won an award at the Cannes Semaine de la Critique. However, the Director of Cultural Creation and Dissemination with the Basque Government at the time, Amaia Rodríguez, and the Donostia Kultura Film Unit realised that while the grants were helping short films to be made, they weren’t guaranteeing their distribution. Kimuak was therefore born to meet that need, with the mission to promote, disseminate and distribute Basque short films at Spanish and international level, objectives which it continues to fulfil 23 years later.
The programme has boosted the careers of filmmakers including Koldo Almandoz, Asier Altuna, Telmo Esnal, Luiso Berdejo, Borja Cobeaga, María Elorza, Jon Garaño, Jose Mari Goenaga, Isabel Herguera, Ione Hernández, Pablo Malo Izibene Oñederra, Koldo Serra, Bego Vicario and Nacho Vigalondo.
The team that makes Kimuak possible today, the Filmoteca Vasca staff members Txema Muñoz and Esther Cabero, will collect the award at the Basque Cinema Gala in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre on Tuesday, September 21.
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Films spoken partially or totally in basque
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- AZTARNAK – HUELLAS / IMPRINTS, by Maru Solores (Zinemira)
- BERAK BALEKI / IF THEY KNEW, by Aitor Gametxo (Zinemira-Kimuak)
- BOLANTE BATEN HISTORIA / STORY OF A STEERING WHEEL, by Iñaki Alforja and Iban Toledo (Zinemira)
- ERLAUNTZA / THE HIVE, by Mireia Gabilondo (Zinemira)
- ETXEAN / HOME, by Mikel Rueda (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- EURITAN, by Arantza Santesteban and Irati Gorostidi (Zinemaldia + PLUS)
- FANTASÍA, by Aitor Merino (Zinemira)
- HELTZEAR, by Mikel Gurrea (Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Zinemira-Kimuak)
- ILARGI GUZTIAK. TODAS LAS LUNAS / ALL THE MOONS, by Igor Legarreta (Zinemira)
- INNER OUTER SPACE, by Laida Lertxundi (Zinemira-Kimuak)
- IRABAZI ARTE, by Francisco Javier García de Vicuña (EiTB Gala)
- IZAN EZ ZIREN EGUNAK, by Kevin Iglesias (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- KINKA, by Maider Oleaga (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- MAIXABEL, by Icíar Bollaín (Official Selection)
- PAPEREZKO HEGOAK, by Josu Martinez and Samara Velte (Zinemira)
- SERENDIPIA, by Iban del Campo (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- TARTEA, by Imanol Gómez de Segura (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- TRUMOIAK / THUNDER, by Iker Maguregi (Zinemira-Kimuak)
- VATIOS, by David Pérez Sañudo (Zinemira-Itxitik)
- ZERUA BLU / BLUE SKY, by Lur Olaizola (Zinemira-Kimuak)
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Children’s films dubbed into Basque
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Sponsored by the company Amenábar, the Movies for Kids section offers a selection of six films for an audience of children to be screened in Basque, thanks to the collaboration of Zineuskadi as part of the Zinema Euskaraz (Cinema in Basque) programme.
Furthermore, thanks to collaboration of the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the Filmoteca Vasca, the Festival will run an online screening for schools in Gipuzkoa of Enrique Gato and David’s film Tadeo Jones 2: Midas erregearen sekretua (Tadeo Jones 2: The Secret of King Midas), dubbed into Basque.
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Films in other sections with subtitles in Basque
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- İki Şafak Arasında / Between Two Dawns, by Selman Nacar
- Inventura / Inventory, by Darko Sinko
- Marocco / Mikado, by Emanuel Parvu
- Le bruit des moteurs / The Noise of Engines, by Philippe Grégoire
- Mass, by Fran Kranz
- Shu Qi Shi Guang / Lost in Summer, by Sun Liang
- Madalena, by Madiano Marcheti
- Mi Iubita, Mon Amour, by Noémie Merlant
- La traversée / The Crossing, by Florence Miailhe
- Razzhimaya Kulaki / Unclenching The Fists, by Kira Kovalenko
- Cenzorka / 107 Mothers, by Peter Kerekes
- Guzen to sozo / Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- Ouistreham / Between Two Worlds, by Emmanuel Carrère
- Petite maman, by Céline Sciamma
- Re Dai Wang Shi / Are You Lonesome Tonight?, by Shipei Wen
There will be two films with Basque subtitles in Culinary Zinema section. The content of the programme will be released next Thursday, September the 2nd.
- Angae / Mist, by Kim Soo-yong
- Mabu / A Coachman, by Kang Dae-jin
- Obaltan / Aimless Bullet, by Yu Hyun-mok
- Yeopansa / A Woman Judge, by Hong Eun-won
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ZINEMIRA KIMUAK AND ‘ITXITIK’
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(Exclusively for Professionals and Accredited Guests)
The Zinemira section will include the short film selection for the 2021 programme of Kimuak, an initiative of the Basque Government Department of Culture and the Filmoteca Vasca, whose goal is to disseminate the best Basque short films of the year. This year the Kimuak selection includes eight short films:
- AZALETIK AZALERA, by Mel Arranz
- BERAK BALEKI / IF THEY KNEW, by Aitor Gametxo
- HELTZEAR, by Mikel Gurrea
- INNER OUTER SPACE, by Laida Lertxundi
- RESONANCIAS / RESONANCES, by Iñigo Aranburu
- TRUMOIAK / THUNDER, by Iker Maguregir
- UR AZPIAN LORE / FLOWER UNDER WATER, by Aitor Oñederra
- ZERUA BLU / BLUE SKY, by Lur Olaizola
Also scheduled for screening, at a single showing reserved exclusively for professionals, is Itxitik, is a movie about the lockdown consisting of seven short films made in response to the Zineuskadi call for submissions. The project has been possible thanks to collaboration between the Basque Government Department of Culture and Language Policy, Zineuskadi, EITB; San Sebastian Festival, Zinebi and EZAE. Iban del Campo, Borja Crespo, Imanol Gómez de Segura, Kevin Iglesias, Maider Oleaga, David Pérez Sañudo and Mikel Rueda are the seven Basque filmmakers bringing their take on the lockdown in the shape of seven stories:
- ETXEAN / HOME, by Mikel Rueda
- HIKIKOMORI, by Borja Crespo
- IZAN EZ ZIREN EGUNAK, by Kevin Iglesias
- KINKA, by Maider Oleaga
- SERENDIPIA, by Iban del Campo
- TARTEA, by Imanol Gómez de Segura
- VATIOS, by David Pérez Sañudo
