Zinzindurrunkarratz

Zinzindurrunkarratz
Oskar Alegria, Spain, 2023, 89’

Following in the footsteps and byways of his grandfather, the author’s journey with a super-8 camera reveals fields, animals, wind, rituals, memories, lullabies…

In the country of fog, all places have their music. Zinzin is a valley of light wind, durrundurrun a bottomless chasm and kurruzkarratz the lightning peak. Shepherds always baptized their world with their ears, and today there is only one left holding out alone in these old mountains, inhabiting his own silence. This film recovers a forgotten path to visit him and a lost way of walking, with an old camera that no longer records sound and a young donkey named Paolo as the filmmaker’s accomplices to reach a destination beyond time.

“The forgotten path and the silent camera are the perfect setting and tool to recover a tradition called “companaje”, which means sharing bread. It’s what my grandfather did. His job was to take food and necessities to the shepherds in the mountains. He did it once a week from his village, Artazu, a seven-hour journey, with a pack horse. I decided to try to repeat it as a tribute to him, but I ran into several difficulties: today no one remembers the exact path, because the route has been lost, and the camera I decided to film with is the camera that belonged to my family, an old Super-8 that after 41 years without being used surprised me by half working. It no longer picks up sound, but it records images. So a great adventure was prepared: tracing the path with a thousand detours and filming in silence. Voyages into the past are never perfect” – Oskar Alegria

“Oskar Alegría’s poetic, handcrafted ethnography reminds us that in filmmaking there is so much still to learn.” – José Luis Guerín

Oskar Alegria will join us after the screening for a Q&A.

With the support of: Embassy of Spain