We do not live in times of opposition. They say that consensus is what needs to be sought. Building bridges. Stretch your hands. You also have to be careful about the call to fight something so that nobody feels uncomfortable. Better than positive, some say, and if you prefer a little warmer. OK. Adapt to the new times. We defend struggles and fighters for dignity, life.
Audiovisual: Dorso
It is a story related to the identity, language and citizenship of a crushed people. History of the Basque Country, told from the mouth of a fictional town. Totally real base. Any people in the Basque Country can be Bizkarsoro and if the spectator is not a citizen can identify with another. It is a film directed by Josu Martínez and so he told us: “It’s an issue I’ve long been interested in. How a language dies. The work done by Joan Mari Torrealdai (The Black Book of the Basque Country, Asedio al Euskera), or by Koldo Izagirre (Tests for the Autopsy), or by Txema Larrear (The Black Book of the Basque Country Rooted) impressed me a lot when I read and thought it would be possible to make a film with her. To invent an imaginary town and to tell the roots of the people in Euskera, from generation to generation, as Bertolucci Novecento narrated the evolution of the coexistence between workers and bourgeois of an Italian region throughout the twentieth century”. And fiction gives a force to the film that helps connect with people and create an imaginary colectivo.Para many people, the
author has stressed that the film is also “a kind of empowerment” and that it will be launched in schools and institutes: “There are many other people who may be vasophiles of tomorrow… or ex-euskaldunes. And there is a very important battlefield.”
Koldo Izagirre said that Euskera would die leaving tests for autopsy in case of death. He doesn't die, but he leaves tests. The audiovisual prize for Bizkarsoro has been the conversion of these tests and documentation into a history and the great involvement of the Baigorrians on the screen and the realization of a collective exercise of memory.
Press: Sahara, a people in resistance
Geopolitics is more than just an empty book. As Saharawi narratives and testimonies intertwine with the passages of history, journalist Kristina Berasain forms a panoramic photo of the past to this day. “I have tried to fade the great story with small stories, because all the Sahrawi people have a book and talking to a Sahrawi is like opening a book,” he explains.
Berasain has confessed to us that he is “chained” with the Sahara since, in 2005, when the intifada began, since his first attempt to introduce himself as an international journalist into the occupied Saharawi territory, we tried to do so because he was expelled from Aaiun. “Western Sahara is a black hole. Morocco does not want witnesses because repression is enormous. Ten years later, I managed to enter the territory and meet first-hand the Sahrawi human rights activists. I have often been in the liberated territories and in the camps where the Sahrawi people live refugees in Algeria. Journalism requires a commitment that has led me to write the book,” afirma.El
is a journalism chronicle and a journey from colonialism to the present day. He received the award “with joy” because “he has been awarded a book that looks at a particularly forgotten conflict,” he stressed. “As Ahmed Bujari said, those who believe that the Sahrawi will be victims of time do not know the nature of the desert. The Sahrawi people are still in resistance and I want to offer the prize to the Sahrawi people,” he said.
Audiovisual: We didn't come from Paris to podcast
Those
who speak Basque culture have spoken, but they have not talked about the work of art, but about the work of making art, the profession and the working conditions. La precariedad.El
podcast is a project of the Association of Professionals of the Basque Country Lanartea that works to improve the working conditions of artists who create or interpret in Basque and to strengthen the Basque cultural system itself. “In this endeavor, the podcast is another act, listen, here we are and this is to tell us about the individual and collective consequences of the precarious framework that is perpetuated in the culture in general and in our culture!” Amagoia Gurrutxaga of Lanartea confesses a way to say.
“Current cultural models are reflected in cultural policies and society as a whole, and directly affect the working and living conditions of creators and interpreters. The refusal to implement policies of explicit support and support for a minority culture in Basque, such as the lack of strategic consideration of the formulas and networks of production and socialization of Basque cultural expressions, has a direct impact on the daily life of the Basque artist; the presentation of culture as spectacle, event, entertainment or set of claims to attract tourists; and the attempt to stifle the popular initiative, which is a fundamental factor for the Basque cultural system;
Internet: Gordegia.eus
We
know from story and historical memory something that the Basques know, because in this country it is also frequent (is) that a single face of events and society prevails. This year the work of the friends of the Egia district of San Sebastian has been rewarded for making a graphic file Gordegia.eus, since instead of telling the history of the rich they have collected the history of the workers and have made the citizens protagonists of the historical memory.
“Only with the photos and documents that the members of the association had at home, we created in the first blow a beautiful file,” explains Arkaitz Artola, member of Gordegia. “And we have also been able to capture images of different associations and agents of the neighborhood, and thanks to the museums Kutxateka, Tabakalera and San Telmo, among others, we have been able to complete the file. We also received contributions via the web, such as photographs or VHS with digital or physical media”, ha subrayado.En in
2019 it was decided to do this work, after the first hook of the Texas Factory, dedicated to the social economy, was demolished. And these have been, throughout the course, the ones who have given economic support and support to the Gordegia partnership.
“We try to get as much information as possible about each document, recognize authorship, etc.,” added Artola, and although he has not told us, it is known that they publish it with free licenses.
“To receive and make available the history of peoples in a popular way seems to us a beautiful and very enriching work and it is nice that the dissemination of our work serves to stimulate similar projects in other neighborhoods and towns,” he said.
Campaign: Stop Guggenheim Urdaibai platform
Business and tourism or needs of citizenship and nature care? This old question is stronger than ever. Private needs, paid with public money, want to sell the Basque Country to the international community. Big, how not. Today we are talking about the Guggenheim Urdaibai and, fortunately, there are still organized citizens who warn that these types of projects will have an obvious impact on mobility, on the price of housing, on the Basque country, on historical heritage, on quality of life, on animals other than us, on the environment, on culture... and they struggle to mortgage their lives.
“There’s a lot of work behind this platform, first because the machinery we have in front of us is huge and has set us great obstacles along the way. We have received a complete disregard from the administrations: that we are hampering the development of this country, that we lie, that we have been given all the information about this project, but that we have not understood… they have considered us a fool”, explains Eider Gotxi. “But the strength that shows that there are many who do not accept the imposition of this project, also the protection we receive from the citizens, that is why we continue to make progress”, continuado.Hacia in
2008 began the first rumors about this project and gradually has been taking shape, the dissemination in the media, etc. “It’s many hours that we’ve spent here instead of family and friends, but we’re talking about the conviction that this project needs to be stopped,” Gotxi tells us.
They have been awarded the prize for the best campaign, and “this prize gives us the opportunity to continue the campaign, and of course to thank those who accompany us and fight with us,” he stressed.
Ion Celestino said in ARGIA that folklore was that thing that has crystallized. And he said tradition is the flower that gives a certain moment.
The ARGIA awards have become a “tradition” today. To begin with, and without thinking too much, because they have been... [+]