We need to value the local, the strength of the community, count our own from our little language. We know well what it is to tell our story for others, from the outside, in their own language. Let us work to create and disseminate quality information and content to the world. The Argia Awards this year are the ones that make it easier for us to count on the community, with quality and in Euskera.

Audiovisuales.Dapa

Currently, image is the main model of knowledge of the stories and stories here and there. The question is what these images count on and how they count.

This audiovisual collection created within the Kulturaz cooperative of Azpeitia is based on creativity. In every dapa the protagonist is the creator. What do artists around us do, what do they believe, how, what do they think? How do you see the world?

“We wanted to do something fresh, to be with the creators, to go into the kitchen, to speak in confidence and to work. We have achieved a Dapa style,” explains Nora Alberdi Odriozola, from the Kulturaz cooperative. Each short video has its own universe of story, sound and image, cared for with mime, to show what is created in the extensive Basque Country. It is not just about what you count, but also how you count, and in it technique, narrative and cinematography are of paramount importance. “It’s a work we do with passion. Being with a creator, sharing time, is something we live in, and I believe that this closeness and passion can be seen later in every Dapa,” Alberdi continued.

“Euskal Herria and Basque culture need lights and windows for resistance, and it is a project created in Azpeitia, but we want to put our share in this collective goal,” said José Luis Otamendi, a member of the Etxabe cooperative.

In the next link the full argument of the prize and the videos worked with Dapa

Press. Crew of Ayala

The region of Aiaraldea began eleven years ago with the dream of living in Basque and Basque, within transformative values. Local media. Community. Although the professional team of journalists is small, the information of a large network of collaborators, driven by the desire to inform, increases their capacity to influence. The roots in the environment guarantee a journalistic practice that, due to lack of resources, would not be possible.

Therefore, when a multinational wants to leave 129 families in the region on the street in the name of profitability, when the workers go on strike and the unemployment lasts 236 days and the workers celebrate the victory... There is no alternative but to strike in favour of the decent living conditions of fellow citizens. From the beginning to the end, day to day, from the piquet of friends, neighbors and family.

“Our functioning and function is community and we have told the story of the region. The work has been done by the Tubacex strikers and we have been nothing more than a speaker, putting the image and the word in their fight,” explains Izar Mendiguren, a member of the media. “If we have managed to keep track of the Tubacex workers’ strike every day, it has been largely through the images sent by these workers,” adds Txabi Alvarado Bañares.

From a young age there are narratives of facts that mark a before and a after in the history of the people. The people of Aiaraldea.eus have done it and done it well. The strike, resistance and experiences of Tubacex workers in Llodio and Amurrio have been told, disseminated and new questions launched. And that deserves a prize.

In the next link the full argument of the prize and the videos made with Aiaraldea

Internet. Badok

When our way of life is increasingly stabilized to listen to music in digital format, the Basque music portal of the newspaper Berria, an indisputable referent of Basque music, was born in an open sea like the Internet: Badok.eus

What started out as an encyclopedia on Basque music has spread and multiplied in a few years. They publish news about the musical panorama, premieres de canciones y discos, interviews, lists of songs, dates of concerts, among others, but without losing their catalogue character. “I believe that, without discarding the database, we find the formula to disseminate current Basque music and we are right to create a reference window of music in Basque,” said Jon Eskisabel.

“Basque music has been very much atomized in recent years and everyone has a place in this portal. We're not dependent on big audiences, we're not obsessed with the most successful songs or groups. It would have been much harder to do this 20-30 years ago. At that time, we depended on a system built around the record companies and it was much more hierarchical. Today it is small and large, much more horizontal,” stressed the portal manager. It has become a benchmark Badok.eus, an essential tool for both the public and musicians.

In the next link the full argument of the prize and the videos worked with Badok

Radio. Archipelago

In the world of communication, radio or theatre novels are very old. Now they're called podcasts, they're not the same, but they have the same root, and in recent years they've triumphed as an Internet carrier.

A story of fictional adventures that takes us to the year 2103. Honest, bad, pirates, fights, heroes -- the listener plunges into the first minute after putting on the helmets. “It’s a classic adventure story. It can be a current Netflix show.

But we've done it here, with our references -- that's why it's also been successful, because it's been seen that here too you can do something orderly," the authors say.

Reducing the sense of sight opens the door to imagination. “All the information must be audited and taken into account. In an audiovisual medium, on a beautiful plane, we can only introduce a lot of information into the image. Not here. But at the same time it’s beautiful, because each one will in their own way represent the port of Urbasa or the Gorbeia Board,” they explain.

Dystopia is ancient in the history of creativity, but in a few times it appears stronger than in others, and the time of COVID-19 or the climate emergency we suffer give special strength to this kind of work. This work is a fiction, there is not yet a Basque Archipelago, but, broadening its gaze, it also has it from the round truth, because thousands of people of the world flee in search of safer lands, including ours.

In the next link the full argument of the prize and the videos made with Artxipelagoa

Meritorium. Irish, Irulegi Irratia and Xiberoko Botza

An antenna was placed on a summit, an FM radio station was acquired, a couple of microphones were plugged into a volunteer's house and launched, as they could, into the adventure of spreading the Basque through the waves. This began 40 years ago the beginning of the three Basque radio stations in the Northern Basque Country.

“The listener waking up in Euskera, making him live every day in Euskera, giving importance to quality information... so do the Basque Radios and I can’t imagine what would be Lapurdi, Baxe Nafarroa and Zuberoa if 40 years ago these radios had not been created,” explains the member of Plot Irratia.

The project that emerged from the idea of dreamers remains a faithful friend to muchos.Las broadcasters distributed by counties created in 1997 the Basque Federation Irratia, subsequently adding the Antxeta radio on the net. But they keep working from each other. “It is important that there are local media so that people can have a place to communicate; a space that puts their own value,” they stress.

They've had volunteers since the beginning of the promotion. “They were created by the citizens, they are participants in their creation, in their functioning, to the extent that the collaborators do, and this participation gives a strength, that is what must be retained. In addition, the promotion of citizenship is also necessary to have economic autonomy”. With citizenship, for citizenship.

Campaign. Screens in Basque

For Euskera to advance in the twenty-first century – and therefore the Basques as a community – we need ways for audiovisual professionals in Euskera to consume normally. On all screens. On as many platforms as possible, starting from home. The situation is very serious. Proof of this is the following: According to CIES, in 1990 70% of the children of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa saw ETB1 cartoons. Currently, ETB3 has a screen share of 0.3%. Just like in theaters, in huge streaming platforms, they're all about nothing. And where do we leave the Basques?

It is not a year that Euskaraz Shielding was launched and the impact has already reached thousands of citizens.
“The above data demonstrate the situation: a large majority of the current population, of youth, consume content in Spanish or English, which affects both the use of the Basque Country and its referents or lack of referents”, the members of the initiative have denounced.

Among the main requests is the legal guarantee that the most consumed streaming platforms in Euskal Herria contain contents in Euskera and a streaming platform in Euskera.

TRYING TO MEET THE DAY WITH A TEN-MINUTE DOSE

I miss the in-person. Go to Atxega Palace, eat with my friends, observe the faces of others I don't know and enjoy the live awards ceremony. Feel the emotions of the moment. One more year we have not been able to see, for the second consecutive year, the trophies of the Argia Awards in hand. And I had hope, I'm not going to lie to you.

However, I have been chained with the formula of awarding prizes on the net every day. They have been waiting for me all week at 10 a.m., today to whom they are going to give me. In my work I have also found the tart to follow up and although it is far from the person’s shape, I like to deliver small doses throughout the week. Not all of the winners I met, and I've been tempted by the introduction videos to dive deeper. I've jumped into the water of the pirates with Artxipelagoa and I've been able to meet some creators even though I haven't seen all the Dapas.

Perhaps because of pandemic tiredness, frustration has drawn me into your claws to start these 2022 Argia Awards. But if this tiny Basque universe is going to have a future, it goes down the path of award-winning, like-minded projects, and their words have aroused me the illusion.

Reward, we don't think we have to eat the world. Let's work so that the world doesn't eat us.

(Article written by Urko Apaolaza on behalf of ARGIA along with the report on the following link: Solar rays between black clouds)