when a tree falls
We asked the film-maker Asier Altuna what his film is about. He answered us and, at the same time, showed us what he wrote and the ideas he drew when he was writing the film. What’s the film about? As the process of making a film goes ahead, you have to answer the question “What’s the film about?” more and more. I’ve stumbled more than once when answering it. You might think that any creative person knows very well what he or she wants to tell and what it’s all about when they start work. But that’s not the way it works for me. Sometimes I finish a film and I still don’t know very well what I’ve made it about. And that lack of knowledge pushes me forward. Spectators usually watch films as if they were on a journey, sitting still in front of the screen and waiting to see what will happen, where it will take them. I get caught up by the pictures. The pictures become an obsession for me. Sometimes it feels like the pictures are following me. I’ve also made short films about strong images which obsessed me. I’ve made the film which we will finish shooting at the end of October about some pictures which have been following me for a long time now.
A young man taken from a black and white photography, and his whole family behind him; dozens of relatives. He holds their weight like a stone lifter. In another picture which has been following me for a long time now, dozens of young relatives from a black and white photo are pulling a rope which is tied to their waists. On one side there’s the burden which a family is carrying; on the other, they run away from that burden. The rope.
That’s the start of the conflict in this film. A young man who’s carrying the family burden leaves the farmstead. That mixes everything up. There’s already a conflict, there’s already mystery. And then one of Kirmen Uribe’s songs suggests a very attractive and metaphorical situation. I got the central sequence in the film from that. And Mikel Laboa’s song Oroitzen zaitudanean ama (When I remember you, Mother) helped me to build one character. What a strange mixture! All of that and colours. Red, white and black. In the film, each child was given a colour on birth. That colour symbolises the role they are each going to play in the family. And it’ll mark their identity for life. That’s all in the film, but does it answer the question what the film is about? Probably not. It’s a film with fracture in it. The breaking of transmission between the generations. About the ups and downs in the farmstead way of life and values. About lack of communication. The young and the old speak in different languages. Communitarian life and individualism. Nature and the city. Two worlds which clash. In fact, it’s a small homage I want to pay to a world which is on its way out. Can you see... What the film is about?
A young man taken from a black and white photography, and his whole family behind him; dozens of relatives. He holds their weight like a stone lifter. In another picture which has been following me for a long time now, dozens of young relatives from a black and white photo are pulling a rope which is tied to their waists. On one side there’s the burden which a family is carrying; on the other, they run away from that burden. The rope.
That’s the start of the conflict in this film. A young man who’s carrying the family burden leaves the farmstead. That mixes everything up. There’s already a conflict, there’s already mystery. And then one of Kirmen Uribe’s songs suggests a very attractive and metaphorical situation. I got the central sequence in the film from that. And Mikel Laboa’s song Oroitzen zaitudanean ama (When I remember you, Mother) helped me to build one character. What a strange mixture! All of that and colours. Red, white and black. In the film, each child was given a colour on birth. That colour symbolises the role they are each going to play in the family. And it’ll mark their identity for life. That’s all in the film, but does it answer the question what the film is about? Probably not. It’s a film with fracture in it. The breaking of transmission between the generations. About the ups and downs in the farmstead way of life and values. About lack of communication. The young and the old speak in different languages. Communitarian life and individualism. Nature and the city. Two worlds which clash. In fact, it’s a small homage I want to pay to a world which is on its way out. Can you see... What the film is about?
