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For a long time, the films were part of the trenches built around the violence of ETA. Documentaries and fictions, on either side, made their contribution to the landscape of confrontation and pain. But something seems to have changed, if you look at what happened yesterday at the San Sebastian Film Festival. On the one hand, the first images of Patria were presented, the adaptation of Fernando Aramburu's novel to the serial format by HBO that Aitor Gabilondo has made. On the other, Zubiak ( Bridges ), a documentary by Jon Sistiaga and Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas, is part of the ETA series , the end of silence (Movistar +) and which features the meeting of Maixabel Lasa, widow of Juan Mari Jauregui, and of the Etarra who killed him, Ibon Etxezarreta .

Two approaches, one from fiction and another from outside it, but the same idea: approach the other to end the pain. In the case of Patria , this responsibility lies with the couple of actresses, Ane Gabarain and Elena Irureta, who in the series give life to the two friends around whom the story is based. Both have done a very intense work , as Gabarain has detailed: "For us, it is very strong, because we have worked with all the love and all the pain. We have built among all the characters. And we have tried to humanize them more than they appeared in the book".

Two women who " begin separated by a bullet and end with a shy hug ", in the words of Gabilondo, to decide "to close with the cycle of revenge." According to the showrunner , "violence destroys everything, whoever exercises it and who suffers it." Hence the need to look at the one in front because "when the pain of others is despised, relationships are poisoned."

In the case of Zubiak , the objective is to provide "pause" and "reflection" through this very special meeting around a table, as Sistiaga points out, to build "the future of a Basque Country where there is a natural coexistence and not a non-violent coexistence. "

The table where they eat victim and executioner suggests that one, around which a photograph brought together several Basque political leaders with Arnaldo Otegui, last Christmas. "In that photograph there were current political figures, one of them questioned by the rest of the forces, which is Otegi. But it is that at this table the people who are seated have made an ethical transition . Maixabel overcoming her hatred and resentment for give an opportunity to a criminal who is the murderer of her husband. And, at the same time, that former terrorist criminal has made a transit of regret throughout his career and assumes his mistakes, the evil that has produced. "

And, hence, the importance of words. "Sorry" instead of "sorry . " "Ibon does not want to put the ball on the roof of Maixabel asking for forgiveness," says Cortés-Cavanillas. "What I have done is unforgivable," he says in a moment. "He feels it, but he does not forgive himself."

For Sistiaga, "sorry" is "a word around which we have been turning for the past 10 years. More specifically, its demand. And when you hear Ibon say that he has done it is unforgivable, you rethink why many political forces they cast in certain words . "

"I've been in puddles for 30 years," says Sistiaga. "When I do it in Colombia with the FARC, in Northern Ireland with the IRA, in Palestine with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades or in Iraq with Daesh ... nothing happens. Because it catches you far away. When you do it here, you are exposed to that in this country of lynchings and ordeal, we are subjected to the fire of a certain inquisition. But this is nothing more than the story of an ETA victim told by his widow and executioner. "

"That we still have doubts about who killed who is almost stupid," laments the journalist. "Obviously, there has been someone here who has been systematically killing almost 900 people for 50 years. Who are the bad guys? Those, the ones who kill. From there there may be nuances that can be explored in fiction and, from now on, finally, also in reality. "

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