Negu Hurbilak

In 2011, the prolonged conflict in the Basque Country seems to be coming to an end. A young woman flees with a clear objective: cross the border. She arrives in Zubieta, a border town where ancient myths and modern conflicts seem to converge. With the passage of time, a diffuse and indefinite time, where days become nights and nights become days, her escape begins to become increasingly labyrinthine.

Radical, dark and ambitious, this first feature film from the Negu Collective, a group of young directors united by their concerns, who met while studying at the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya, does not leave anyone indifferent. viewer. Despite the persistent silence that dominates the entire film and that seems destined to keep the audience at a distance, the magnetism and wonderful melancholy of the landscapes draw us in like a vortex.

'Negu Hurbilak' is a difficult-to-understand film interpreted solely from a narrative perspective, 'Negu hurbilak', which competes in the Cineasti del Presente section of the Locarno Festival, only reveals all its cruel and cruel beauty when the audience surrenders to its slow pace and the tension wrapping everything like a finely woven web.

The story, simple and terrifying in equal parts, is about a young woman, majestically played by the winner of the Goya 2021 for best new actress Jone Laspiur, who, at the end of the Basque conflict runs away from home and political persecution in the hope of successfully crossing the border.