euskalkultura.eus

Donostia-San Sebastian.  The anthropologist, Olatz Gonzalez Abrisketa (Bilbao, 1973), has told EuskalKultura.com about her upcoming audiovisual project, a film documentary on Basque pelota.  Gonzalez Abrisketa is an expert on the subject that she also wrote her doctoral thesis on and has dedicated seven years of research.  The anthropologist has poured the results of this research into a book.  Basque Pelota: A Ritual, an Esthetic published in 2006.  She now revisits the topic with a creative documentary about pelota and the lives of those who play it.  Filming will begin in January.

The project, co-directed by the Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth, includes the participation of the Basque Films production company. Filming will last about six months, during which the filmmakers will follow the daily life of various pelotaris. Among the names that will appear in the film will surely be figures such as Aimar Olaizola and Juan Martínez de Irujo, in addition to a young man about to make the leap to professionals.

“It is a creative project, not a pedagogical one,” Gonzalez Abrisketa says, who had previously done more academic documentaries: the recently awarded Carmen and a documentary about Jørgen Leth, co-director of this project. Leth is also an expert on the subject, having directed the documentary entitled Pelota  in 1983, in which pelotaris such as Retegui II participated. 

Olatz Gonzalez Abrisketa is a Member of the HAUtaldea group that develops projects on Visual Anthropology.