Basque conflict escape film 'Negu Hurbilak' comes to Locarno: 'People expect shootings in escape films. It's not always like that'

With brooding darkness, the ambitious Negu Film Collective – which includes filmmakers Ekain Albite, Mikel Ibarguren , Nicolau Mallofré and Adrià Roca - works to explore the contradictions of a Basque conflict that weighs heavily on all those who have experienced it. The issues, which follow one another slowly, depict the reverberations of the traumas of the time.

With international sales and distribution in Spain handled by Madrid-based company Begin Again Films ("21 Paraíso "), "Negu Hurbilak" marks the collective's first feature film, whose previous Basque shorts "Erroitz" and "Laiotz" have laid a solid foundation for its ever-expanding network of filmmakers with a desire to unravel its incongruities.

A Catalan-Basque production between Cornelius Films of Barcelona ("Frontera") and Maluta Films of Saint- Sebastien ("Ainarak"), the project participated in the WIP section of the Atlantida Mallorca Talent Lab in 2022 and is set to have its world premiere in Locarno's Cineasti del Presente strand, which serves to discover talent.

Set in the brooding border village of Zubieta, the film tells the story of a young woman , played by Goya Prize-winning Jone Lasipur, fleeing political persecution and encountering a vast network of townspeople trying to help her escape. During her flight, the weight of her situation sinks in as time stands still, life seems to go on around her as she is suspended in an indefinite pattern of expectation.

Resolutely melancholy, the film's hazy aesthetic, which includes mist rolling over the hills and nearly empty shots of vast landscapes, is an ode to the natural terrain, which also coincides with the turbulent state of mind of the characters and the turbulence they face. Softly diffused scenes from the village intertwine with shots of the protagonist's exile.

"The aesthetic approach is a reflection beyond the simple realization of an aesthetic landscape. He intends to show the magical places in the region and has a lot to do with the idea of ​​the border. It is a border that many people have had to cross to avoid the same repression that our protagonist is fleeing from,” Albite told < em>Variety.

“Negu Hurbilak” courtesy of Begin Again Films

"This border is a special place because it has always been a place of contact but also of escape and hiding place. The idea is that of the border as a limbic space, an indefinite space, a strange space. The landscape also acts as an emotional place of silence, of repression, of the secrecy that exists", he added .

The film, much like the conflict at its heart, lingers, a slow burn as we witness another clandestine encounter between the protagonist and a reluctant, speechless shepherd. The laborious scenes carry an urgency and point to the dichotomy of the time. Her unwavering loneliness confronts her rigid hope as the sheep roam the fields outside her window, enjoying the freedom she yearns to restore. His temperament, regularly oscillating between desire, fear and anxiety, is deliberately palpable...