MADRID, 6 October 2003 — Even if there’s no such thing as bad publicity, acclaimed director Julio Medem didn’t expect quite the maelstrom his documentary about Spain’s Basque region would stir up.
“This has gone beyond my worst nightmares ... I’ve even been compared with Hitler’s documentary maker,” said Medem, referring to Leni Riefenstahl, who died last month.
Making a film about the deeply sensitive subject of the Basque region was bound to prove controversial in Spain.
ETA, western Europe’s most active guerrilla group, has killed nearly 850 people since 1968 in a bloody campaign for a Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.
Medem says his documentary, the Basque Ball, which includes 70 interviewees talking about the status of the Basque region and opens across Spain this week, is simply a call for dialogue.
But Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s center-right ruling party refused to take part — depriving the film of the harshest critic of Basque nationalism — and the culture minister criticized it while refusing to see it.
“It seems a real shame to me ... we tried and tried to have them participate ... but I imagine that some of them haven’t wanted to because that in itself boycotts the film and makes it lame because they, precisely, are missing,” Medem said.
“I wanted to make a film ... in which many voices can be heard, reflecting the Basque conflict in the richest way and in the most detail. But it turns out that in doing that, for some people, I’ve become ... a radical,” he told reporters.
Medem, known for feature films such as “Cows” and “Sex and Lucia”, says he tried to portray the conflict from all sides.
A Basque youth group leader who had his leg blown off by a bomb calls for dialogue with those who attacked him; while the wife of an ETA member, with a baby on her hip, talks about the problems of having a husband in jail.
The widow of a politician killed by ETA describes how their relationship changed when her husband was forced into exile, and how he was killed while on holiday back in his Basque hometown.
A woman describes how she was tortured by police as a prisoner charged with links to the violent separatists of which she was subsequently cleared; while a Basque language writer talks of a future in which the freedom to express political diversity is possible.
Medem, who says he is not a nationalist although the text of a recent pro-nationalist plan appears in the film, has been bombarded with criticism from the political right, anti-ETA groups and intellectuals.
“We objected to the film ... because it puts the hangmen on the same level as the victims,” a spokesman for the ruling Popular Party (PP) told Reuters, explaining why it had refused to take part.
Before coming to power the prime minister himself was the target of a failed ETA plot in 1995.
Anti-ETA groups say the film is disrespectful to those suffering from the violence, despite including interviews with ETA victims. Besides that, two interviewees say they were misrepresented.
The film and the reaction to it mirrors the huge tension overhanging the Basque country, where the center-right central government has taken an increasingly tough stance against ETA, while the group has continued its bombings and shootings.
The Basque Ball opens in London later this month.
Madrid’s relationship with the Basque regional government is at an all-time low and some political observers say the polarization has been deepened by a central government which believes that Basque nationalism itself feeds ETA violence.
“ETA’s goals and those of democratic (Basque) nationalists are the same ... instead of prioritizing the fight against ETA, they (prioritize) the goal of independence,” the PP spokesman said.
The mainstream Basque nationalist party, itself opposed to ETA’s bloody methods, is the main political force in the region.
Medem argues that Spain’s media, on both the right and the left, has adopted the same approach as the government, resulting in a dangerous and deep entrenchment.
“The devastating way in which Spanish nationalism criminalizes Basque nationalism is damaging the Basque Country’s image. Most Basques do not confuse nationalism with terrorism, but when you travel around Spain you find that there are more and more Spaniards who do,” says Medem in notes accompanying the film.
The government’s hard line was exemplified in a controversial law passed in the national parliament last year, with the backing of the main Socialist opposition party, which outlaws any political party that does not condemn ETA violence.
This resulted in the outlawing of Batasuna, a political party which the government said formed part of ETA. Batasuna denies links to ETA.
Although ETA has just a handful of supporters in Spain, the law came under fire from mainstream Basque leaders who said it could fuel violence by shutting out Batasuna supporters. The party has won about 10 percent of votes in Basque elections. It was also slated by jurists and defenders of free speech.
The conflict dates back to fascist dictator Francisco Franco, who brutally repressed Basques for nearly 40 years, trying to stamp out their Euskera language and traditions.
Basque nationalists are fiercely proud of their roots and believe their unique history should provide them with a special status in contemporary Spain.
Spain’s Basque country is split down the middle, with about half the two million population considering themselves nationalists and seeking more autonomy or independence.
Koldo Zuazua, a writer interviewed by Medem, says that when the Basque country resolves its problems, a great weight will be lifted off the shoulders of its people.
“It will lift us up, like we’re walking on air,” he said.
