World première
There are pictures that do not exist. And pictures that exist twice. Neither of these places exists any more.
Al borde del agua [Beside the Water] is the work of two people: Iñigo Salaberria and Maria Elorza. A film-maker born in 1988 in Donostia-San Sebastián, she was a member of Las chicas de Pasaik, and in 2022 presented her first feature: A los libros y a las mujeres canto. He, born in Rentería in 1962 and recently deceased, was a key figure in the Arteleku centre and one of the most important video artists of the 80s and 90s. The film begins with a phrase: "Between 1984 and 1988, Iñigo Salaberria filmed several locations with a small Super 8 camera. It was test material. The reels were never edited and remained in the shadows for thirty-three years". After this, the images filmed by Salaberria appear. Reflections in the water that turn figures into shapes, colours and textures; whaling ships; a lake where smoke and steam mix; buildings that turn into vertical lines; more reflections in water, accompanied by the sound of the water itself, and sometimes by classical music. Above all they are drafts for Salaberria's pieces Quai de Javel (1984) and Birta Myrkur (1987). Attractive images framed in such a way as to turn them almost into paintings, that bring us closer to the video artist's view. To what his relationship with reality through the camera was actually like. We can also hear his voice, which in several conversations with Elorza tells us more about his reflection on what is involved in filming images: "Wandering, walking, looking. Unhurriedly, with time. Walking, looking, wasting time. I've never filmed in a hurry. That slowness, I don't know why, appealed to me. Well, I do know why. Because what I wanted to document is what's inside".
Lur Olaizola