Cinema has always been a vital medium for articulating the Basque region's unique identity and politics. The first definitive study of Basque cinema, this book provides a systematic analysis of the key Basque films, directors and cinematic institutions. Its narrative moves from the romanticised Basque Country travelogues of Pathe to the coded oppositional aesthetics of Franco-era films; from the post-Franco 'new wave' supported by regional government funding to the boom in auteurist cinema during the 1980s and 1990s. It also charts the contemporary impact of the film institute Basque Filmoteca and television channel Euskal Telebista in producing and disseminating Basque-language films. Based on archival research, close readings of films and in-depth interviews with influential figures in the Basque film scene, this book is essential reading for world film scholars and cultural historians.

Rob Stone is Chair of European Cinema and Professor of Film Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he co-directs B-Film: The Birmingham Centre for Film Studies. He has published widely on European, Spanish, Basque, Cuban and independent American cinema and is the author of Spanish Cinema (2001), The Wounded Throat: Flamenco in the Works of Federico Garcia Lorca and Carlos Saura (2004), Julio Medem (2007) and Walk, Don't Run: The Cinema of Richard Linklater (2013, 2nd edn 2017). He also co-authored Basque Cinema: A Cultural and Political History (2016) and Cine Vasco (2016), and co-edited The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film (2007), Screening Songs in Hispanic and Lusophone Cinema (2013), A Companion to Luis Buñuel (2013), Screening European Heritage (2016) and The Routledge Companion to World Cinema (2017).

Acknowledgements

List of illustrations

Basque Cinema: Citizenship and Sentiment

2. Melodramatic Beginnings: Early Basque Cinema

Taking The Initiative: The San Sebastian Film Festival and the Transition

Past Tense, Present Tensions: History, Heritage and the First Basque Wave

Broken Windows: Representations of Terrorism

Elastic Basqueness: The Second Basque Wave

Boxed In and Breaking Out: Short Films and The Third Basque Wave

Longing and Belonging: Transnational and Diasporic Basque Cinema

Funding Films, Finding Audiences: Contemporary Basque Cinema

Inside Out and Outside In: Two Concluding Views of Basque Cinema

Bibliography

Index