Chez les Basques season travels to Iparralde

Chez les Basques season, scheduled during the 9th edition of “Punto de Vista” Festival, will be screened from 7 to 15 November in different locations of Iparralde. This way, the season promoted by Punto de Vista and the Basque Cultural Institute of the area, Euskal Kultur Erakundea, gets closer to the place where films were shot and is also enriched by three new titles.  

Punto de Vista continues its spreading works of one of the most special seasons of its 9th edition. This time, it takes place where the films comprising its program were shot. Therefore, the titles of this season will be shown on the second week of November in eleven locations of this Pyrenees-Atlantiques region. In some cases, they will be screened in the exact place where they were shot or just a few kilometres from there, and the season will travel from town to town with exhibitions in Donibane Lohitzune, Ortzaitze, Maule, Donapalau, Donibane Garazi, Biarritz and Baiona.

This time, Chez les Basques has also been enriched by the incorporation of three new titles regarding to its performance in February in Pamplona: 

• Garazi (1959 / 26’/ Jacques Krier, Jean Claude Bergeret). It was shot in black and white in the hill of Arnostegi, a small boarder place in Eiheralarre. Their directors bring us closer to a way of life already lost, high-altitude pasturing, which as the authors of the document qualify, was as “hard as amazing and poetic”. 
• The Basques of Santazi (1987 / 52’ / Leslie Woodhead). Based on the anthropological studies by Sandra Ott, the author of the brilliant project The circle of Mountains (1981), this documentary relates the passage of the days of two peasant families in the Zuberoan village of Saint-Engrance, at the foot of the Pyrenees. A portrait of the rural life but also the slow agony of a way of life that today only exists on our memories. 
• Hitza egin (2015 / 116’ / Eugène Green). Shot in Basque by a foreign filmmaker and which still has not been released, it is a choral portrait that goes through the current landscape and people, with familiar faces such as Mayi Oihenart’ songs and a text by Joseba Sarrionaindia created for the film. This film will be the crowning touch to the season at the mythical cinema “l´Atalante in Baiona”.

All sessions will be accompanied by a discussion with the films’ protagonists or with their direct witnesses. Also, some showings will include live music, as in the case of Le Chermin D’Ernoa, (1921, Louis Delluc), filmed in Azkaine and surroundings, which will be screened at the cinema “Itsas Mendi” in Urruña with the performance of the local accordionist Philippe Ezcurra.

With this new program, Chez les Basques season completes a nomadic life that began in Pamplona during the holding of the last edition of Punto de Vista last February, which travelled to Bilbao in March thanks to the collaboration of the University of the Basque Country, Bizkaia Aretoa building, within the scheduling of Kulturbasque UPV/EHU. 
 

CHEZ LES BASQUES

On the occasion of the centennial of Orson Welles and with the exhibition of its documentaries filmed in Iparralde, Chez les Basques season (“at Basques’ home” in French), it is intended to protect and gather for the first time the important documentary heritage that has undergone this area between the Pyrenees and the Atlantic.

From the beginnings of cinema, just a few places in the world may boast of a prestigious group of internationally recognised filmmakers that decade after decade have come closer, as the author of Citizen Kane did, to portray the life and culture of this spot in Europe. This ethnographic interest draws the selection and programs comprising Chez les Basques.

Besides ethnographic reasons, each visitor has a film excuse to come to this spot of the world; Hubert Knapp found the ideal place to apply his formula called Croquis with which he intended to capture the soul of a geographical area; Orson Welles pursued his particular arcadia at the border and Otar Iosseliani has pursued the echoes of the traditional songs of his native Georgia within the old pastoral Basque songs.
 

PROGRAM (http://files.eke.eus/pdf/chez-les-basques.pdf)

The season will begin on November 7 at the cinema “Le Select de Donibane Lohitzune” at 8:30 pm, with the conference Ziburu, by Bernardo Atxaga, and the showing of Around the world with Orson Welles (Pays Basque I + Pays Basque II). On November 8, cinema “Vauban” in Donibane Garazi will host at 5 pm the showing of Euskadi été 1982 (Otar Iosselliani) and Garazi. On November 9, at 8:30 pm, Around the world with Orson Welles (Pays Basque I + Pays Basque  II) will be screened again at the cinema “Les Variétés” in Hendaia. On November 10, The basques of Santazi and Maskaradak (1980, Jean-Dominique Lajoux) are scheduled at the cinema “Maule Baitha” in Mauléon at 8:30 pm. On November 11, at 5 pm, it will be the turn of Le Curé basque de Greciette (1958, Hubert Knapp) and Au Pays des Basques (1930, Maurice Champreux). The day after, at the cinema “Salle Garbi” in Ortzaitze, it will take place a new showing of Around the world with Orson Welles (Pays Basque I + Pays Basque  II) at 8:30 pm. On the same day, November 12, at 7 pm, Around the world with Orson Welles (Pays Basque I) and Le Curé basque de Greciette (1958, Hubert Knapp) will be screened at the cinema “L’aiglon” in Kanbo. A day after, at 8:30 pm, Le Chermin D’Ernoa (1921, Louis Delluc, René Coiffard) and Rochers de la Vierge (1896, Auguste Lumière, Louis Lumière) will be screened at the cinema “Itsas Mendi” in Urruña. On November 14, at 8:30 pm, Au Pays des Basques (1930, Maurice Champreux) and Rochers de la Vierge (1896, Auguste Lumière, Louis Lumière) will be screened at the cinema “Le Royal” in Biarritz. On the same day, it will be the turn of Le Curé basque de Greciette (1958, Hubert Knapp) and Croquis en Soule (1958, Hubert Knapp), at 8.30 pm at the cinema “Saint-Louis” in Donapalau. The season will end at the legendary cinema “l´Atalante” in Baiona on November 15, at 5 pm, with the premiere of Hitza egin by Eugène Green.