Pirenaika

1978. While talks are going on for a new agreement in the metal industry, a group of libertarian militants encourage their fellow factory workers to defend their radical position. Meanwhile, they watch in dismay as the workers’ movement becomes fragmented.

Entrails, a flock of sheep, one spring. The cooing of doves and songs hummed. Some vultures, bones, flowers and many hands. Hands which feed, milk, stroke, shear, film; hands that kill. Hands which inhabit the doubts and contradictions about using other species.

Almost two decades ago, the Itoiz dam flooded seven villages and three natural reserves on the Pyrenean hillside in Navarra. The ecologist group Solidari@s con Itoiz registered the fight against its construction. Today, those who were there dream of the land lying beneath the water on video. Their voices and gestures come together to tell the tale of an individual and collective mourning still suffered today.

In her escape, M. takes refuge in an abandoned house. Amidst the echoing sounds resulting from her efforts to make herself comfortable, she hears some footsteps outside and decides to open the door. A fortuitous visitor, who will become her companion-in-shelter, steps into the house.

The wolf no longer inhabits the land that once formed part of its territory, and only through its outlines can we get closer to it; remnants of wolf traps, predator urine imported from the US, a dung-hill used to feed scavenger birds and archers that shoot at replicas of animals. Reserve constructs a story about the fragile balance of a territory after the disappearance of the predator, where the complex co-existence between humans and non-humans presents a distinctly marked anthropogenic ecosystem.

Two men measure the heights of pine trees. A woman listens to what the trees are saying. The children of the village set up the camp. A cloud of digital dots reveals the forest. The pines have said that we can ask. They always called this place 'Paraíso'. Machines will come soon.

The arrival of two Slovenian bears in the Pyrenees of Navarre alters their balance. The bear has been a natural inhabitant of the Pyrenees for a million years. However, its disappearance led to the transformation of the area. The presence of these new visitors brings old conflicts back to the fore.