NYC Basque Film Festival

The Delegation of the Basque Country to the United States, in collaboration with the Etxepare Basque Institute, is hosting the NYC Basque Film Festival. The festival aims to showcase Basque language, culture, and cinema in the U.S. Three films will be screened this year from December 3rd to 5th at Manhattan’s historic Village East Cinema: ‘Tasio’ (Montxo Armendariz, 1984), ´Loreak´ (Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga, 2014) and ´Irati´ (Paul Urkijo, 2023).

‘Tasio’ (Montxo Armendariz, 1984)
 December 3rd
6:30pm | Village East by Angelika

´Tasio´, Montxo Armendáriz´s debut film, will open the festival on 3 December. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its premiere at the San Sebastian Festival, ´Tasio´ is back as a classic of Basque cinema. The Basque Film Archive had it remastered at the L ‘immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna, Italy, and the newly restored 4K copy of Tasio is now being shown at international film festivals. It was screened in Cannes Classics at the Cannes Film Festival, at the Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, and at the Lumière in Lyon, and will be released in cinemas in Iparralde (French Basque Country) and France in 2025.

The film follows the life of Tasio, a boy from a small village in the mountains of Loki, Navarre. Tasio has been working in the mountains as a charcoal burner since he was eight years old, but while many of the villagers emigrate to the cities in search of stable work, Tasio prefers to keep his freedom and live in the mountains. The film is based on the life of the charcoal burner and poacher Anastasio Ochoa Ruiz.

Loreak (´Flowers´, Jon Garaño & Jose Mari Goenaga, 2014)
December 4th
6:30pm | Village East by Angelika

´Loreak´ by Garaño and Goenaga will be featured on December 4th. Presented at the 62nd San Sebastian Festival, it was the first film made entirely in Basque to compete in the festival’s official selection.

Ane´s life takes a turn when she begins to receive a bouquet of flowers anonymously at her house every week. Lourdes and Tere´s lives are also affected by mysterious flowers.

Every week a stranger deposits a bouquet in memory of someone who was important in their lives. This is the story of three women, three lives altered by the mere presence of flowers. Flowers that will bring out in them feelings that seemed forgotten... But in the end, they are nothing more than flowers.

´Irati´ (Paul Urkijo, 2022)
December 5th
6:30pm | Village East by Angelika

On December 5th, last year´s top-grossing Basque-language film, ´Irati´, will bring the NYC Basque Film Festival to a close.

VIII century. Christianity spreads throughout Europe while pagan beliefs disappear. Faced with the attack of Charlemagne´s army crossing the Pyrenees, the leader of the valley asks an ancestral goddess for help. Through a blood pact, he defeats the enemy by giving his life in exchange, but first, he makes his son Eneko promise to protect and lead his people in the new era.

Years later, Eneko faces that promise with a mission: to recover his father´s body buried in a pagan manner next to Charlemagne´s treasure. Despite his Christian faith, he will need the help of Irati, an enigmatic pagan of the area. The two young people will enter a strange and inhospitable forest where “everything that has a name exists”.