Lighting up the shadows

In 2025, the Basque Government, EITB, and the Basque Film Archive undertook the recovery and restoration of four medium-length films made entirely in Basque in the mid-1980s. The long and delicate process included a trip to the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratories in Bologna. The documentary, an original EITB production, chronicles the journey of the four directors and the recovery process carried out in Italy. Because it is important to tell these stories too.

UN TAL KARLOS

Everyone knows Karlos Arguiñano. He has been part of our lives for almost forty years, teaching us how to cook on television while winning over audiences along the way. But do we really know him, or do we simply think we do? This film offers an intimate look at Karlos, taking us into his most private spaces as well as into situations outside his usual routine. By listening to him and to those closest to him, the film sets out to discover the person behind the public image.

Berta discovers that she is pregnant and doesn’t know what to do, as she doubts her partner Manel’s love for her. On the advice of her friend Sílvia, she decides to give him burundanga, the “truth drug.” Once it takes effect, Manel confirms that he is in love with her, but also confesses something far more unexpected: he is a member of ETA.

ROMANCE OF THE BLACK MOON

Clara, a 90-year-old woman living alone in the Basque Country, finds her quiet life disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious neighbor. From that moment on, figures drawn from memory, philosophy, and love begin to reappear along her path. Moving between the everyday and the fantastic, Clara enters a realm where memories take physical form and time itself seems to stand still. An intimate journey through old age, absence, and the possibility of rediscovering what once seemed lost forever.

STILL WARM

A monstrous, red-skinned, horned body has been found in a remote mountain area. A team of scientists, led by renowned and now-retired forensic expert Maureen Hughes, has been assembled to perform an autopsy and answer one question: is this really the Devil’s corpse?

This Solitude

Leo and Lorea have loved each other. Perhaps they still do. But something between them has broken. After five years, their relationship has come to an end. He carries the burden of his sick father, caught between responsibility and an emotional detachment that weighs heavily on him. She, tangled up in poorly paid jobs and personal crises, tries to put herself back together without really knowing where to begin. They are two tired, lonely bodies, shaped by precarity, by unresolved issues, and by the emotional inheritance of a generation that always seems to arrive late to everything: love, stability, maturity, peace of mind, and personal fulfilment.

PEDRO ARRUPE, I SURVIVED THE ATOMIC BOMB

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The image that has remained etched in the world's collective memory is the mushroom cloud rising over the city, but not the charred bodies beneath it, nor the hands struggling to save them. That other story was witnessed by Pedro Arrupe, a Basque Jesuit of universal stature. Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as the spectre of nuclear threat once again looms over the world, a university professor sets out on a journey to uncover the little-known story of Pedro Arrupe, the Basque Jesuit who survived the atomic blast and helped save more than 150 people. From the streets of Hiroshima to the Vatican archives, and back to his roots in the Basque Country, the documentary recovers the voices of survivors in order to preserve their words. Their testimonies become a catalyst for ethical reflection on peace and human rights, at a moment when their defence is more necessary than ever.

ALL WE NEVER WERE

Leah (19), an aspiring young painter, is broken. Since the tragic accident that took both her parents away, she has become a shadow of who she used to be. When Oliver (30), Leah's older brother, is offered a job away from home to support Leah through College, he asks his best friend Axel (30) to take care of her. Unaware that Leah has always been in love with him and that both their lives are about to change dramatically, Axel promises to look after her. He makes it his mission to help Leah pick up the pieces and become the colourful girl she once was. As their attraction towards each other grows to unbearable proportions, Leah and Axel must decide whether to suppress their taboo love or to Let It Happen.

Past (Im)perfect

The Year 2063 It’s the silver wedding anniversary of NATI and RAMONTXU (60s). With their relationship on the rocks, Ramontxu has decided to gift his wife something she’s always dreamed of: a trip through time. Nati is excited. Where to? Imperial Rome? The Renaissance? The Year 2023 RAMON and NATALIA (25) are having a blast on their first date. Nati most of all, who’s never met anybody so nervous and charming as Ramon. Ramon has been waiting forever to meet the woman of his dreams, but Natalia seems more fixated on the wine, and on joking around... and he loves it. When Nati and Ramontxu walk through the door, Nati cannot believe it. Her husband has taken her back to their very first date! Yet while Ramontxu has returned to revisit the Past Perfect, he finds himself face to face with the Imperfect Tense... At one table, love is blooming. At another, contempt. Even so, the young couple should get their happy ending, unless Ramontxu gets in the way...

LA IMAGEN DE UN CRIMEN

Unai is 70 years old, a retired air traffic controller, and believes he has uncovered a crime while learning to use Google Street View. No one takes him seriously, except for the young teacher of the computer class for retirees. Together, they uncover a plot that puts them in the deadly crosshairs of a criminal conspiracy.