When you were young, you wrote poems, you were a bertsolari, a screenwriter, a musician, a documentarian... Looking for ways to tell?

Yeah, I think it's mostly telling that I like. Three years ago I thought I was going to write it down; when I was studying audiovisuals I thought I was going to dedicate my activity to journalism and now I would say no. But it is a luxury to be able to transmit to people what they hear and hear, what makes you passionate, through words or images. It's a big one.

You often talk about understanding the past. But you belong to the mortgage generation more than you belong to the memory age. Your generation lives connected to the future, yet you have looked back at the documentaries.

People usually tell what has happened to them, not what will happen to them. Somehow, we're always talking about the past. I don't know if other young people are interested in history, but if we don't know our past we'll be the mortgage generation, then yes, we'll be completely mortgaged. Patricio Guzmán, Chilean director at the San Sebastian Film Festival, says that a town without documentary memory is like a family without a photo album. And that’s why I think it’s necessary to look back.

In the documentary The Daughter of the Sea we saw Haizea looking for the trail of her father who was killed by GAL, while in the time of Sagar you have told us the story of Kristiane Etxaluz, the forester, and Alfonso Etxegarai, the deported Plenians. You have known the lives of two militant men through two women. What gave you that perspective?

When Wind told me his story and asked me to help him trace his father, I realized from the beginning that the story was his, that Wind was the protagonist. The same with Kristiane, we were clear that Sagar’s time could not be a film about Alfonso, because Kristiane is not Alfonso’s wife, she is Kristiane, and behind her she has an incredible history of making a documentary as such. That's why we've told the story of the two in parallel, not of Alfonso through his wife. Kristiane is not an instrument, she is not the means to reach Alfonso, she is the protagonist in herself, on the same level as Alfonso. In general, I think women are better storytellers. But from the outside it is often not received in the same way.

What is different about receiving?

A
year after introducing the daughter of the sea, after 60 performances I went to visit Peixoto and greet him “ah, and greetings to your girlfriend”, he told me. I said, “What girlfriend?” and she said, “Isn’t that your girlfriend?” I've noticed that a lot of people think I made the documentary because I had a girlfriend. And not only with Haize; Kristian is 69 years old, but she has also asked me if I am in love with her! It hasn't happened to me yet with the women of Saturraran, but, look! If it were the other way around, if it were a girl who interviewed men, it wouldn't be strange, because we consider men to be subjects. But in my case there is always a need to justify, they always ask me: “But why do you spend so much time with this girl? Why are you so interested?”, they don’t understand how to generate such interest in me. And the truth is that it’s funny, I don’t get angry, but it seems to me that we still have to deconstruct a lot of things.

For both Kristiane Etxaluz and the women who had been in Saturraran prison, it would have been amazing to see two young men like you interested in their story. How have you been received?

I don't think we've done any good. Kristian always tells us that he told us what he wanted to tell the children he didn’t have, and a very special relationship has been created between us. When someone tells you a part of their life, it creates a connection, it has given you a part of it. Carme Riera, a 96-year-old Catalan woman who was imprisoned in Saturrarán, has kept a terrible story in her womb for years, the boy died in prison, and for the first time when someone asked her about her story, 70 years passed.“Too late,” he said. “Now you want me to tell you what I have had to keep and digest in solitude all my life?” It’s not just about keeping it a secret, when everyone belittles you, you also belittle yourself, and you think that what you have to tell is less important, or that even though it’s important to you, it’s not worth sharing with others.

Working with real stories will require a lot of prudence and sensitivity.

I love hearing stories in the fire or in the kitchen. I always feel a terrible debt towards these people; it’s not a heavy debt, but I also want to give them something. For example, in the meantime I remember Carme Riera and I think, “How is this lady going to be? Will he still live?” because I usually think he will die at any moment and I will not know. Every time I call him I call him with that fear, thinking if he will pick up my phone, but I always hear “Digim?” and I say “Hello Carme! You know who I am?”, and he always answers me “yes, man, my friend from Bilbao!”, which gives me an inconceivable joy. Or with Kristiane: if I was her confessor at first, now it’s the other way around, and I’m the one who tells her the worries and issues of my life.

How committed are you to the protagonists of your documentaries?

I’m very involved and I think that’s how it should be when we’re dealing with people. When I was studying film in Cuba I had an Argentine teacher, a very special woman, who left me a letter on the last day with a posdata. Here's how it said: “José Martí wrote with 18 years to his mother a postdate. Ésta es la misma postdata: it’s not the fight and the cold. Mom, don’t stop.” This is the same thing, the struggle, the work or the struggle should not be separated from the tenderness, they should go together. One without the other makes no sense. What's the point of fighting without modesty?

The struggle and the tenderness are constants of your documentaries.

Not everyone likes our documentaries. For some it is a delight to tell the story of Kristiane or Haize. But I am clear that fighting and tenderness cannot go away separately, and I believe that now, in this new phase, it will be imperative to keep this in mind and look into each other’s eyes. Getting to know each other is the first step to understanding each other.

How have the documentaries been taken by people of different political sensitivities?

When I became the daughter of the sea, I also wanted to reach people of other sensitivities. I was convinced and I am convinced that if we get rid of prejudices, stories like this can reach anyone, and that is our bet. And that’s why we tried to go out with the documentary and present it from village to village, but it’s true that, above all, people with similar sensibilities have approached. We're still in the trenches. That is why we have been very pleased to see that the documentaries have reached someone from the PNV, someone from the EU or the leaders of the Festival. You're thinking about: “Maybe I’ve done something to make this person perceive these realities differently from now on. They may be tortured or incarcerated differently.” I thought we were making a path, little by little digging the wall, but there are very few in quantity. It is still very difficult to break that wall or that bubble.

Have you presented in the documentaries the victims of the political conflict in the Basque Country, the voice of these victims that you missed?

Oh, yes, of course. But I don't think the right word is a victim. When we made the first poster of the daughter of the sea we put “the story of a victim of the GAL”, but Haizé does not consider herself a victim, nor does Krisitian and Alfonso. When you make conscious choices in the context of the situation in which you live and have an active attitude you are not a victim, the victim is a very sad role that involves a passive attitude with him, and the people in our documentaries are not victims, they do not have a victim attitude. Naming someone as a victim is very dangerous because these people are often deprived of their personhood and are used. Who are we “for the sake of the cause” to designate anyone as a victim? It should always be remembered that we are the tool for the people we interview, and not the other way around. You have to be very careful. Interviewees are the ones who have to take the initiative to tell something, and if they don’t want to tell it, they don’t. Everyone knows I won't betray them in that sense. From this confidence comes the true fruit. To recognize and respect you as a person.

Have you had concerns about the potential consequences of addressing this approach? Are you afraid of me?

Rather than fear, worry. You know, they're not corrective subjects. If it had been fiction, if I wasn’t 24 years old, if I had 30 films made, winning some prize... then the subject would have had more impact and would be more dangerous. It’s said in Spanish, “El mayor desprecio es no aprecio”, and they do it to us. Since we haven't broken the bubble, there's no problem. An article about the daughter of the Sea that came out on ABC made the film about “The Assassin’s Cap Sanguinario” saying that I was a “prose director” and I have heard that I have also been called “the historian of ETA”. In the situation we are in, you are a little concerned about these things. But as long as we don't break the bubble, we don't exist, so we're not a problem. Not only in politics, but in Basque culture in general. They don't know us. For example, in Radio Euskadi, in the afternoon I feel very free and speak as I think about it, even against the radio station. But what is his responsibility? Altogether, the leaders of Radio Euskadi do not listen to Radio Euskadi! That's the bulling they make us. We don’t make it interesting for them. But I think now is the time to break up with that big bubble. In this new phase, each one of us should make a special effort in the direction of national construction. Emerging from the harsh times of war, the foundation of the new Basque Country must be culture. I'm convinced of that. We have to be a creative people. Why do we need a state? To be like Spain? That’s the problem with a lot of models, that we copy them to Spain, and copying them to Spain is like copying the dumbest of the class.