Zumiriki (Oskar Alegría) Spain |

Zumiriki
Oskar Alegría
Spain. 2019. 122 min

Is it possible to travel twice to the same memory? The filmmaker
built a cabin on an isolated river bank, just opposite his childhood island, which had disappeared under the water after the
construction of a dam. The goal was to go back to that place,
which had become invisible. 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, so the air was the only space left, the only vestige of the past to be conquered.

AN ATTIC OVER THE RIVER. A memory-shaped hut built of birch planks and balanced on columns of iroko wood like a house on stilts in flight over the shoreside waters. The architecture of a piece of nonsense. Set on the island of childhood, on the most inaccessible river bank, just opposite the great submerged poplar tree. The cabin was transported by water and along a narrow footpath that is only accessible on foot, and it took five months to build. It was camouflaged with branches, heather, hawthorn, brambles and moss from the island, which helped it blend into the landscape.

OSKAR ALEGRÍA

Punto de Vista International Film Festival artistic director from 2013 to 2016 in Pamplona-Navarra. His first film Emak Bakia baita (the search for the house in the Basque coast where Man Ray shot his Emak Bakia film) was shown in BAFICI, Edimburgh, Telluride, San Sebastian, Shangài, Yamagata, DocLisboa, San Francisco and Denver Film Festivals, has been translated into 16 languages and won 17 awards.

FILMOGRAPHY

The Search for Emak Bakia (2012)

DIRECTOR,S STATEMENT

My father used to film the traditions and landscapes of his small village. One day I noticed he also used to film the plants and birds that were disappearing and at the same time and at the same time he noted down the words for them in old Basque. Then I learned that if words die, birds and plants also vanish. So filming was a way to save our ancient world.

QUOTES

“We knew that a painter could say it all by painting one single flower. Now we know that a filmmaker can tell it all by filming one single cloud.“
Isaki Lacuesta

“Bold and masterful. This film shows us that cinema is the home of childhood.” Ignacio Agüero

“This movie is unlike any other; like a Robinson Crusoe of memory.” Eric Pauwels

“A feast for the soul, an anthropology of time, a masterpiece.” Alan Berliner

POSTER