| “I believe that all accidents, wounds, or scars have a lot to say. The silent, the meaningful, is also very virtuous and perhaps the best way to show certain corners of the soul, such as ruins or lost gestures.” – Oskar Alegria Paths, detours, going astray. The Basque Oskar Alegria is a filmmaker in the first person. His starting point is reality, in which he seeks out the invisible and the vanished. Most of his film ventures send him on a journey, feeling his way towards something, step by step, without being able to say: towards an object, a goal. Alegria’s films also take detours in their search, or they go completely astray. They accept the slowness, the waiting and celebrate the memory and remembrance that preserve what has disappeared. There is no doubt that his films can be called minimalist. Nevertheless, they are rich and saturated with the impressiveness of the wayside, under Alegria’s precise and often mischievous view of the world. UNDERDOX already had Alegria’s “Zumiriki” in its program in 2019, a film about an island from the filmmaker’s childhood that sank into the water, the centerpiece of his trilogy about the disappeared. He is now returning to UNDERDOX as “artist in focus” with his first film and also the first part of the trilogy, “Emak Bakia baita” (2012) about a house that cannot be found, the location of Man Ray’s film in 1926. As the opening film, Oskar Alegria is presenting his latest work “Zinzindurrunkarratz” (2023), the conclusion of the trilogy. Will his companions, his father’s old, damaged Super 8 camera and a tolerant donkey, be able to track down the missing shepherd’s path, which no one can remember? |
Oskar Alegria Born 1973 in Pamplona, Spain. After training as a journalist, he worked as a reporter for news channels in Madrid. His first feature film “Emak Bakia Baita” was shown at all major international documentary film festivals and won 17 awards. He has been writing travel reports for El País since 2002. He is the author of “Las ciudades visibles” (“The visible cities”). He teaches documentary film and audiovisual screenwriting at the University of Pamplona-Navarra. From 2013 – 16 he was Artistic Director of the Punto de Vista International Film Festival in Pamplona-Navarra.
Films
Emak Bakia baita 2012
Gure Oroitzapenak 2018
Zumiriki 2019 (15. UX)
Zinzindurrunkarratz 2023
Zinzindurrunkarratz
Oskar Alegria sets out on a journey to recover the past. With a Super-8 camera that belonged to his father and has remained untouched for 41 years, he plans to retrace the path of the shepherd – the journey of transhumance that his grandfather took in his youth whose exact coordinates nobody remembers today. The result is a film that takes delight in both the search and the many detours that come with it. Shot in the north of Spain – between Artazu and the Andia mountain range – ”Zinzindurrunkarratz” is made of fields, animals, wind, flowers, trees, fires, precious objects and rituals, herbs, blizzards, home movies, family memories, lullabies…
Mostly silent, the film is accompanied by on-screen text that poetically complements the images and muses on the creative process. By paying attention to the gestures of a lost time enacted by previous generations – gestures that are slowly vanishing amidst the technological revolution – Alegria composes a regional song, a family memento and a deeply felt homage to the mother. – Cristina Álvarez López
Oskar Alegria
ES 2023
German Premiere
89 min | Basque, Spanish
Credits
B+DOP+E+S: Oskar Alegria | P+Sales: Emak Bakia Films
Emak Bakia baita (The Search for Emak Bakia)
The starting point for Oskar Alegria’s first film is Man Ray’s avant-garde film “Emak Bakia” (“Leave me alone” in Basque) from 1926. A house near Biarritz bore this strange name and was the film’s location. The only thing that is known about the house today is the picture of its door and its two pillars. It is not mentioned in the archives, no one remembers the place. Alegria decides to search for it on foot, asking chance and the wind for help.
Oskar Alegria
ES 2012
84 min | Basque, Spanish, French
Credits
DOP+E+P+Sales: Oskar Alegria | S: Abel Hernández