argia.eus
INPRIMATU
A game never finished
Peru Iparragirre @peruiparragirre 2022ko uztailaren 21a
Kandelikara | Harkaitz Cano | Donostia Kultura & Euskadiko Filmategia, 2021

The Nosferatu film programme began in 1988, at the initiative of Donostia Kultura, with around 70 retrospectives in cycles that have focused on filmmakers, cinematographies, historical periods and diverse themes from different places and times. Starting in 2008, books were published to complete the program and since 2013, two books have been published in Basque and Spanish. Since 2012, the Basque Film Library has also participated in the program.

The 2021 Nosferatu program was dedicated to the Aragonese filmmaker Luis Buñuel. From January to December, the filmography of 32 films directed by Buñuel was fully released, completing the cycle with the Candelika. Harkaitz Cano wrote the book Apunteak for a film about Buñuel. According to the Cano himself, the assignment they made him, excuse to write the book, was to try to hack him. The result is a collection of notes moving at the borders between essay and fiction.

The book is composed of reflections on life and the universe of Buñuel and on film and creation. But it's more than all that, it's a winding game. Armenian insurance seller, movie scenes, poems, memories, notes by Agnès Varda making the counterpoint to Buñuel... In the film we are sometimes reading, we forget that we are reading notes for a film about Buñuel, and in the most surreal way Cano reminds us of the supposed raison d'être of the text, while at the same time making it clear that these notes probably would not be able to film.

In the light of the Candelica we are making links, part of the crystal, Lorca and Dalí, calligraphy – it excites the notes on the last page – things that work in the cinema – the hair that has been trapped in the projector – things that are necessary to make a film... The game is fun and a possible gateway to enter the universe of Buñuel. The illustrations by Iñaki Landa dress well the book, which is actually a great cadaver exquis, because even with the bits of life together come interesting things.