ABSTRACT
On January 10, 2011, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) [Basque Homeland and Freedom], the Basque separatist group, released a statement declaring a denitive cessation of its activities. The nal announcement came after a few ceaseres, including the “permanent” one from 2006 which only lasted nine months.1 These prior truces were widely understood as a sign of the terrorist group’s waning days. Moreover, the proclamation to end hostilities in September 2010 spurred a number of articles in the press voicing the opinion of politicians, pundits, specialists and victims of the terrorist group about ETA’s future and political viability. While the consensus was that the Basque separatist militant group was experiencing its nal moments, the continued coverage in media had the effect of intensifying once again the notion of the “Basque conict” and making the terrorist group a political pawn during the early electoral campaign leading to the general elections of 2011. The attention paid to this conict was also apparent in the Spanish lm industry. After the 2006 ceasere announcement, four lms released between 2007 and 2008 dealt once again with the subject of Basque terrorism. The lms Tiro en la cabeza (Dir. Jaime Rosales, 2007), Clandestinos (Dir. Antonio Henz, 2007), Todos estamos invitados (Dir. Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 2008) and La casa de mi padre (Dir. Gorka Merchán, 2008) revisited the topics of Basque violence, Basque identity and the region’s pursuit of independence. It is noteworthy that only one of these lms was made by a Basque director, Merchán, who produced La casa as his rst feature-length lm. The lms by Henz, Gutiérrez Aragón and Merchán share a common topic: the portrayal of Basque male youths and their relationship with the violence that has characterized Basque politics. In this chapter, I focus on how this depiction relates to past and present ideologies that keep privileging a traditional political and social structure of the Spanish nation.2
