Means: See you soon. This short film was shot in 2013 in the Basque towns of Bakio, San Sebastian, and San Juan de Gasteluatxe in the province of Bizkaia, Northern Spain. Two years prior to Game of Thrones.
Half-siblings meet for the first time when the American sister visits her Basque half-brother to make amends for the sins of their father.
I wrote this story inspired and reimagined from a childhood memory of a Basque friend's personal story. Also, wanting to work with my good friend, Patxi Barco, whom I know since 1986 when I was in Gernika making Gernika Lives and editing at K200 production house where we met.
Starring:
Ainhoa Aierbe, Patxi Barco & Begonya Plaza
Spanish, English and Euskera with subtitles in English. Duration: 15 minute. Shot on 5DMark II. Aspect ratio: 1920 X1080 (HDV) - Private screener on Youtube. Available as a Quicktime.mov file and on DVD region "o". Released in 2014.
Kontxi Orbegozo was so incredibly splendid and gracious allowing us to use her bar.
Kontxi is not only my extraordinary friend but her dishes are exquisite and I recommend you visit her bar if you have a chance to travel to San Sebastian or Donosti (the name in Euskera).
Alai Taberna at Catalina de Erauso Kalea, 9, 20010 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain Phone: +34-943-46 62 81
Camara: Antonio Galvez
Assistant Camera: Alain Consonni
Sound: Jon Fika
Editing: Taji Ameen & Begonya Plaza
Music accordion composer: Kepa Junkera
Produced by: Izar Productions, & CreAv
All rights reserved, May 12, 2014
In Castillian Spanish on 10/16/2013
Begonya is interviewed by Felix and Kike on Basque Radio IFLANDIA
IFLANDIA entrevista a Begonya Plaza
At half show: 51:50 for the second half of the program Begonya comes on.
By Felix y Kike IFlandia Radio Euskadi. Es un programa divertido, interesante sobre cultura y arte. Para todos los de habla hispana les recomiendo descargar sus podcasts.
More photos of Gero Arte shoot.
Eskerrik asko, dear friends of Bakio. Koldo and Rosa you were amazing in how you offered up your bar and services the wonderful Itsasargi Kafetxea at: Zarrakoa Bidea, 7, 48130 Bakio, Bizkaia, Spain. Tel: +34 946 19 31 93
Thank you! all who served as background patrons encouraging a smooth shoot, and patiently enduring the repetitive takes with joy and good will. The night turned out to be a big town event. How delighful, and I am so grateful to you all.
My dear and long time friend Miguelín made all this possible, with permits, contacts and his own enthusiastic involvement. So true that time and distance means nothing when there is a strong bond of friendship. After the shoot, Miguel invited us to his amazing caserio-home and prepared for us a meal composed of the percebes he caught, out in the rocky seas of the Atlantic ocean, eggs, tomatoes and chicken from his farm, and delicious local chorizos and sardines. It was a banquet. Eskerrik asko Miguelín. You deserve your own documentary, and here is Miguelín talking about his lemon trees.
Forever we will remember this experience and treasure not only its creative challenges but the beautiful people I made friends with along the way. Gero arte!
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"Do the Blind Dream?" by Barry Gifford
A private reading by the theater group BLACK LODGE THEATER, directed by Alexandra Siladi.
October 15, 2013
The play takes place in Fùlmine, a small town close to the sea in the south of Italy. Beatrice, a woman in her seventies, has just died, and her children are gathering to attend her funeral. Aldo, Beatrice's son, and Sandra, her eldest daughter, arrive at the house of "Aunt" Rosa, their mother's caregiver in her last years——Beatrice suffered from Alzheimer's disease——with their respective spouses, Giuliana and Ignazio. Cara, Beatrice's younger daughter, a famous actress, arrives with her American boyfriend, Buddy. The family, along with Aunt Rosa and two men from the funeral home, and later, a Priest, constitute the main cast.
"Do the Blind Dream?" is a title built on double entendre: Does anyone, sighted or not, see the truth of daily events? To paraphrase the poet Delmore Schwartz, in dreams reside responsibilities.
As the action proceeds we become acquainted with the jealousies, rivalries and secrets concerning the immediate family and the (mostly——as well as ghostly) absent father and husband. As everyone talks we begin to discern how and why they lie——not only to each other but to themselves. The only person among them who retains a true sense of her self, as well as a measure of elegance, is Beatrice, the dead woman, who in life did not speak a coherent sentence in her final years. Here, however, she is free to talk, liberated in death as she was imprisoned in life by convention, a bad marriage and, finally, illness.
Also at issue here is the recurrent clash between generations, the traditional and the new; between a burned out culture struggling to be reborn and an often vulgar contemporary one. Cara, despite the serious differences between her and Beatrice, emerges as the one among the children to best represent the values and spirit of their mother. As the family members wrangle, recriminate and stumble toward rapprochement, Buddy, the "visitor from another planet" as one character describes him, is able to pick up and follow the thread of truth as it unravels. And, of course, it is left for Beatrice to have the last word.
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As Mariela Castro Espín, in the premiere of Eduardo Machado's new play, “MARIQUITAS” directed by Michael Domitrovich.
Photography by Sion Fullana
Produced by Theatre for the New City/Crystal Field. April 27, 2013 through Sunday, May 19, 2013.
MARIQUITAS is set in a gay-friendly bed and breakfast in Old Havana, Mariquitas focuses on a group of Cuban jineteros (hustlers) and their older European clients as they satisfy the desires of their bodies, minds, and souls in a country with limited resources. In the last 5 years, LGBT Cubans have experienced unprecedented freedom of expression due to the support of sexologist, psychologist, and politician Mariela Castro Espin. Still, the country’s history of marginalizing, persecuting and interning homosexuals makes faith in this new period of growth tentative at best. Mariquitas uses the struggles of a specific slice of contemporary Cuban life to illuminate a larger historical dynamic – the continued tradition of cultural and sexual imperialism between Cuba and its former colonizers.
With cast: Omar Chagall, Matthew d'Amato, Ricardo Dávila, Oscar Hernandez, Liam Torres, Ed Trucco, Carlos Valencia Ana Valle, and Begonya Plaza as Mariela Castro Espin. Set design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, lighting design by Alex Bartenieff, costume design by Michael Bevins, sound design by Betsy Rhodes, production stage manager Michael Alifanz.
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"Writing is a synthesis between self and others, the objective medium taking flight into the unconscious."
AMERICAN HERO by Begonya Plaza
Still photo, AMERICAN HERO , by Caterina Armenter, 2010
GERNIKA LIVES (a documentary about the bombing of Gernika)
Written, and directed by Begonya Plaza
It is the 50th Anniversary of the bombing of Gernika. Gernika was the first innocent town to be air bombed by Hitler, with the encouragement of Franco and his fascist regime. In this film, my father reunites with childhood friends, and family. Amongst them are renowned Basque artists like Jose Luis Iriondo, Olaeta Ballet, Mauri Ugartemendia (one of history's greatest Spanish futbol players), Gernika's mayor, other politicians, educators, athletes, and the town's civilians who were barely children when the devastation began. They recount that horrific day, which was on a Monday, it was market day in Gernika, when the surrounding towns come to gather and sell their produce, and celebrate their culture and unique tradition.
Starring: John Randolph, & renown Basque writer/historian, Mario de Salegi.
Spanish, and Euskera with English Voice-Over & subtitles. 45-minute video.
I Filmed in 1987 before any other film was made of its kind, and later again in 2000 when I met writer, historian, Mario de Salegi, at his home in New York City, I added footage of him candidly speaking about the Spanish Civil War, and the comparisons with our escalating current world crisis.
It is through these proud, hard working, and authentic people that we learn about their culture, rich history of independence, and democracy, a language that is rooted in their land, and the consistent violence from outside trying to exploit the most fertile of lands between Norther Spain and Southern France.
The film is narrated, and introduced by John Randolph, from his dressing room on the Broadway stage while doing "Broadway Bound" for which he won the Tony that year.
Now most of these characters have died, but GERNIKA LIVES, stands witness to its history. You will be given a tour of Gernika, 1987, with all its symbolism, political parliament, sacred oak tree, and you will meet some of the people who survived, and lived to tell their important story.
The little town of Gernika was blazed mercilessly, killing a third of the townspeople as a pre -Spanish Civil War warning attack, aided by combined nazi - fascist allied forces on the side of Franco. This was the first ever air raid, and the initial test ground for the Nazi new technology and strategy called blitzkrieg, where large masses of innocent civilians would mercilessly be attacked from the air with falling bombs.
I was too young and didn't know what I was doing, but my passion and desire to honor my father's traumatic childhood in an attempt to help redeem the past is what carried me through. With the help of individual sponsors, from Spain and the United States, friends and family I embarked on my creative journey. Later, I brought my friend, award winning editor, Jack Tucker, to collaborate with me, and for one year in Galdakano's K200 studios, we edited the film that I and my team had shot around the 50th Anniversary commemorations.
GERNIKA LIVES aired on Euskal Televista International, screened at Anthology Film Archives, Eusko Etxea NY, was purchased by: Boise State University Library, Dartmouth College Library, private individuals and other institutions.
STARRING: John Randolph (Seconds, Serpico, Prizzi's Honor) Jesus Plaza, and Mario de Salegi.
Edited by: Jack Tucker and Begonya Plaza
This evil event prompted Picasso to paint the famous work of art, Guernica, demonstrating the defamation of outside forces on innocent village people.
The Basques are considered to be the indigenous tribesmen of Europe and Gernika is the heart, and holy land of Euskadi. The April 26, 1937 attack was just another escalated threat to Euskadi's ancient precious culture.
My father, Jesus Plaza, was born in Gernika, and vividly recalls the atrocities he endured that changed his family's life and the course of his own.
It is through these proud, hard working, and authentic people that we learn about their culture, rich history of independence, and democracy, a language that is rooted in their land, and the consistent violence from outside trying to exploit the most fertile of lands between Norther Spain and Southern France.
For inquiries please contact me at: [email protected]
Reviews
Dear BegonyaThank you so much for the films which had arrived when I got back yesterday evening and watched. I loved them- such a personal journey for you. I especially liked Guernika Lives with its original footage and wonderful music to accompany it- very inspiring and informative. I was even more horrified by the event and so touched by the courage and strength of the Basques- and the people who were interviewed. It must have been very emotional for your father. I so applaud their strength in holding on to their cultural unique identity.On Saturday I will be sitting in the restaurant you recommended, thinking of the events, and will raise a glass to you and yours.Thank you again,Lesley - MiriamEngland / February, 2013