What was to come in December was finally delayed to February. The feature film Negu hurrak will see the light in Barcelona, where he was born as a short graduate in the ESCAC film school. It soon went from short to long because the young Ekain Albite and Mikel Ibarguren who worked with the script saw that there was content and the other two Catalan filmmakers who are part of the Negu collective. The rights were requested from the school, and with the help of the producers Maluta*films (Basque Country) and Cornelius Films (Catalan Countries) have produced the feature film.

They have intended to show a different face than what has been called the Basque conflict. As both authors expressed Lander Arretxea in this interview, they felt "desire" to do something other than the stories constructed so far.

Ibarguren: "What has been done so far has been done with a morbid and epic look, from a logic of idealization or hatred. We have departed from another site (...) we have carried out a long process of documentation with the border, with the people who have fled, etc. It could be a very action-packed movie, but what we've been told hasn't been that. They tell us the mines of waiting and silence (...) Sometimes we try to photograph the whole mountain. We wanted to look at a small part of that more general photograph and then complete the puzzle with ideological and artistic options."

The town of Zubieta is very present from the foreground to the last, and its inhabitants lay the body. In this interview, they highlighted the naturalness with which they showed themselves before the cameras: "When the filmmaker understands that what happens in front of his eyes can be more interesting than what he thinks, a new world opens up to him. A lot of people want to do exactly what they've represented on paper, but we saw that what was happening could be much more complex and interesting, and then we had to take it to us with the camera and the assembly."

Jone Laspiur is the only professional actress, Goya awarded in 2021 by the best new actress. "Ally" also for Ibarguren and Albite; Laspiur himself has been part of the process. Besides recording or rehearsing, he has participated in people’s knowledge.

Film festival tour

At the Locarno International Film Festival (Switzerland), the film Negu Hurrak premiered in the competition dedicated to the first and second films of novice directors in the world. He received the Special Mention from the Jury.

Asked about this premiere, Albite remembers: "They've had the ability to read some layers that we hadn't consciously detected. They deepen because they are not conditioned by one or another attitude towards a story. That's been very beautiful."

He has since gone through film festivals. In Seminci, for example, during Valladolid International Film Week, the public showed interest. Albite: "In Valladolid the talk started at 12 p.m., but there were 30 people who wanted to ask and receive answers. They also asked us why we chose this issue. Conflict has conditioned part of our life and personality. How could we not deal with this issue? ".

He has also received the award from the Young Jury at the Márgenes Film Festival in Madrid and was part of the competition of the Official Section of the L’Alternativa Festival in Barcelona.