ZUMIRIKI
Oskar Alegria, Spain, 2019, 122'
The filmmaker built a cabin on an isolated bank of the Arga river in Navarra, just opposite his childhood island, which had disappeared under the water after the construction of a dam. 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. Zumiriki —word that in Basque used to mean island in the middle of the river— 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 and 36 minutes and 23 seconds. A refuge that is much like a dark chamber which registers images and words before they disappear. Also registered, in another time and place, is a collection of the last nights of the shepherds that dwell, in solitary, in the huts of the Basque Pyrenees.
Oskar Alegria. Punto de Vista International Film Festival Artistic Director from 2013 to 2016, in Pamplona. He is the author of a photographic artistic project called “The Visible Cities”, and a professor of documentary scripts in the Masters of Audiovisual Scripts from the University of Navarra. His first film Emak Bakia Baita (the search for the house in the Basque coast where Man Ray shot his film Emak Bakia) was shown in more than seventy film festivals. It was translated into 16 languages and won 17 awards. Zumiriki, his latest film, premiered at the Venice Film Festival and winner of The New Waves Non Fiction Best Film Award at the Seville European Film Festival.
