By Nicholas Vroman

Negu Hurbilak (Spain, 2023) opens with an epigram from the song of the same name by Mikel Laboa and Xavier Lete. Laboa and Lete were leaders in the 1960s cultural and political movement to gain political autonomy, if not independence from Spain – and to reclaim Euskara (the Basque language) as the legitimate idiom and voice of the Basque people. Under the aegis of Ez Dok Hamairu, along with along with musicians Benito Lertxundi, Joxean Artze, Jose Angel Irigarai, Lourdes Iriondo and other artists and cultural workers, they made music and produced events that flew in the face of Franco’s cultural repression, which effectively outlawed the use of Euskara in official, public and even, written discourse.