This event is part of the traveling package of our Basque Spring and you can catch it in the following dates and locations

Opening! 25 April Glasgow CCA Glasgow tickets here

Edinburgh Sunday 28 April, Part of Leith Pintxos & Shorts Crawl (more here)

London 17 May Stour Space, 7 Roach Rd, Fish Island, London E3 2PA tickets here

Manchester 22 May Cervantes Institute

Leeds 23 May Hyde Park Picture House – More information here

Kimuak (the Basque word for “sprout”) came into being two decades ago when they first pioneered the annual selection of short-films made in Basque Country, supporting the best films from the region. Following the example of France and New Zealand, the Basques became pioneer in championing short-films.

The importance of an initiative like Kimuak goes beyond the mere work of selecting the best Basque short films of the year. It is like a school for film directors, a way-station towards feature films and a genre by itself, to which successful filmmakers often return.

We can’t help but being excited to bring once again to Scotland one of the most important initiatives promoting short films not just in Basque Country, but in the whole of Spain. A whole generation of new Basque filmmakers triumph worldwide thanks to Kimuak, so is the case that they are often referred as the “Kimuak generation”.

The so-called Kimuak generation have started to acquire great international recognition funnily enough daring to use Basque language in their films as a new normal. Some of the filmmakers include Jose Mari Goenaga, Jon Garaño, Asier Altuna, Isabel Herguera, Paul Urkijo, Pablo Malo, Aritz Moreno, Telmo Esnal, Koldo Almandoz, Borja Cobeaga and Bego Vicario. Many of them you have been discovering through our short film evenings.

The selection this year brings a particularly strong selection of short-films. Take a look for instance at Alcine Festival winners -one of the main European Short Film Festivals-, they awarded not 1 or 2…but 3! of the films coming from the Kimuak Selection this year. That alone says a lot about the quality and the great breed of Basque filmmakers you will find at this year’s Kimuak selection

The Films

592 METROZ GOITI
– Above 592 metres –
Direction Maddi Barber
On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven villages and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land, 592 metres above sea level, today marks a dividing line within the landscape of the valley. Below that level, the water; above it, life goes on.

AMA
– Mother –
Direction Josu Martinez

It is the summer of 1915. In a village in the French Basque Pyrenees, a woman lives waiting for a letter.

ANCORA LUCCIOLE
– Still Fireflies –
Direction Maria Elorza

In 1972, in one of his best-known articles, Pier Paolo Pasolini spoke of the disappearance of fireflies. A few months later he was murdered. Since then the fireflies have continued to disappear. But there are still people who remember them.

KAFENIO KASTELLO
Direction Miguel Ángel Jiménez

The centre of Athens. Surrounded by a world in crisis and generalised destruction, a small group of characters resist the end towards which they seem inevitably to be heading. The film looks at fraternity and the desire not to throw in the towel.

NO ME DESPERTÉIS
– Don’t Wake Me Up –
Direction Sara Fantova

Bilbao, 2009. Jone is a teenager in the 4th year of secondary school. In her school there is a strong activist and Basque nationalist atmosphere. One day her father takes a political post in the Basque Government, which means the need to have a bodyguard and give up the life they had been living until then.

ZAIN
– Waiting –
Direction Pello Gutiérrez

«Don’t ask me about the hidden reason of all dark things,
or where the path of fickle time leads us.»

At CinemaAttic we work towards the expansion of Spanish short film overseas as we strongly believe in the immense capacity of regional film directors whose works must be relocated from the outskirts of the film industry. It is indeed that isolation inherent to the short film format what we understand gives it its very exclusive nature, its real value.

This event is part of Basque Spring, a film season organised by Cinemaattic that will bring to the UK classic and contemporary films from Basque Country from April 25th to May 23rd, and includes special screenings, talks and gastronomic events. The retrospective is supported by Etxepare Basque Institute and is part of the #ScotlandGoesBasque programme. More information via: at www.cinemaattic.com