I AM BLACK
I'm black and I'm proud.
1st Part: Black Beltza, Transmedia Universe
In 2013, on Fermin's tour,
I saw that they had on T-shirts that said Black is Beltza.
It grabbed my attention and I asked what it was.
A friend told me it was Fermin's new project
and I'd soon find out what it was about.
The T-shirt grabbed my attention, the name Black is Beltza.
Beyond hearing a bit about the story, I was interested in the slogan,
the esthetic of the T-shirt.
I think I got it during the tour, it was my tour T-shirt.
It was like an announcement of what was to come,
without knowing what it was really.
Anyway, when you talk to Fermin Muguruza
you always expect a wave of something to come.
The next year, in 2014,
the day they presented the comic,
they opened the exhibition in Bilbao's Alondegia,
with loads of complementary activities.
I decide to go to it.
We divided the exhibition by cities,
following the trip made by the protagonist of "Black is Beltza".
First New York, then Havana...
We then gathered the material that Fermin used
to write the graphic novel.
We put together the material he used in that process
and made a selection.
We had specifically the book, the comic illustrations,
but also photos Fermin took
of locations that he sent to an illustrator
and historical photos on which it was based.
And material that had stayed on the periphery of the story.
We put it together and gave it form.
When I read "Black is Beltza" I felt a shiver.
I saw my life reflected in the story, to a degree.
My mother went to live in Cádiz
and there she fell in love with a young man from Tanzania.
While she was pregnant,
my father died, run down by a car.
My mother returned to her village
and I was born there, in Zarautz.
When they told my grandmother that her son had died,
she decided to open the letters she'd received from her son,
letters she hadn't read because she was angry with him
for having left Tanzania.
In his last letter, he told her she was going to be a grandmother.
My grandmother decided she had to meet me.
She went to Cádiz
and there they told her my mother was in Zarautz.
She made an exhausting trip to Zarautz to meet me.
When I turned 18
I went to Tanzania to get to know my roots.
I am Black is Beltza, it told Ainara and Luci.
I want to follow closely everything they do.
We decided to do a photo session to send to Fermin,
to tell him I wanted to be a part of the project.
Since then, it's been a beautiful journey.
It's hard, but I'll try to summarize this adventure of the last 5 years.
I saw at once that it was an ambitious project,
a project with many ramifications.
And that was my fear. But I also knew it had a long road.
This story's route is random,
because first came the writing of the script
for an adult animation film.
My main challenge was to control the ramifications,
to try to get the creative volcano that is Fermin Muguruza
into the cartoon panels.
When we worked in his kitchen he had the Internet, I didn't,
and that wasn't a good idea
because he was always finding happy accidents,
new information,
"Ali was fighting that day, we must put that in...
He took the Olympic medal and tossed it in the river,
have to put that in too...".
He told me he was working, he'd written this novel,
he'd seen my work, he wanted me on the project,
and straight away I began to think
how I could tell Fermin: no.
I read it really fast and I really enjoyed it,
it really surprised me,
so I gave it to my wife
and said: "Look, this came to me".
I thought I wouldn't do it, but I found a lot of things in it that,
even though we didn't know each other,
that it was written for me to illustrate.
All the musical references,
the period, lots of references that were already in my work.
It was like it came out by itself.
I gave it to my wife to read and she was Fermin's great ally.
She said: "If you were waiting for a script to do a graphic novel,
it just arrived, this is it".
It's impossible to say no to Fermin.
I don't know anyone who can.
They say someone did it once, but I don't know them.
It's easier to say no to a dragon than to Fermin Muguruza.
When the exhibition opened I was helping
and ushering the guests that were arriving.
With funk, the next revolution in the world of DJs would come.
That repetitive 4/4 beat reinvented by James Brown
would mean a radical change for DJs.
This isn't James Brown, but it's funky.
So two beats began to mix at the same time.
In 2015, Fermin traveled the world presenting the graphic novel
in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Japan...
He also organized different events: debates, round tables, concerts...
At the same time, he was in New Orleans, filming a documentary.
Broadening the Black is Beltza universe.
When Black is Beltza landed in Barcelona,
it was through the exhibition held in Bilbao,
in Alondegia.
One tried to bring something similar to Barcelona.
We found a space to do it.
Looking onto Las Ramblas is a fishbowl, all glass,
a reduced space,
and there we decided to set up a recording studio
to do daily recordings there.
Filming, posting items on the Net
on the daily activity around the Black is Beltza exhibition.
We'd performed in Pamplona,
and that day we were returning to Barcelona, we had a day off,
and he said he wanted to do a New Orleans-style street show
in Barcelona,
to celebrate San Fermin's Day.
Taking the streets is something that really motivates both of us.
In Catalonia the street shows, what they call "cercavilas" here,
have these gigantic, big-headed characters,
but there's a very strange giant in the town of Sallent,
the only political giant in Catalonia, which is a <i>maquis,</i>
an anti-Francoist fighter.
I told Fermin that...
if anything motivated me more than the street show,
it was parading a gigantic <i>maquis</i> on Barcelona's Las Ramblas.
We had great fun subverting the accepted order.
-Long live Black Fermin. -Hurrah.
Fermin Muguruza works in such a way that he goes to do this,
and suddenly something that involves whatever
starts to multiply, to spin on itself like a top,
it has a spiral effect and becomes 50,000 activities.
From February to June 2017, Fermin and Jone
settled in the town of Sant Andreu de Barcelona,
in the creative factory Fabri I Coats.
That was the epicenter of the Black is Beltza earthquake.
In Fabra i Coats,
along with the techno duo The Suicide of Western Culture,
Fermin recorded a disc,
leaving the trail of Black is Beltza on this too.
But most surprising was the group
created with the Barcelona Music Workshop,
made up of 20 women, the Micaela Chalmeta Big Band.
They did two concerts,
one in Donostia, in the Victoria Eugenia Theater,
and another in Barcelona, in the Grec Theater.
I was at both, enjoying these unforgettable celebrations.
2nd Part. BLACK IS BELTZA, THE FILM
1965, October, New York World's Fair.
The Pamplona Giants, iconic image of the San Fermin fiestas,
were invited to participate in the 5th Avenue parade.
But not everyone could parade.
Due to racial discrimination, the American authorities
banned the participation of the black giants.
Everybody or nobody!
Out of the way, Manex!
You're as racist as them.
10 years have gone by and I remember it like yesterday,
Fermin came in excited,
with just on sheet of paper with a photo and a short caption
And you say:
fuck, with so little, this sheet of paper says so much.
The whole adventure came later, 10 years it lasted,
and with so little, what a great story that paper had.
It was argued about a lot, but I always thought of it as a 2-D film.
As it ended up being.
At one point it looked like it was all going to 3-D
and I wasn't convinced by the story
and I'm glad it was done in 2-D, which is what it had to be.
In all this time,
as well as looking at the way to be able to produce it,
to form the teams,
we've been analyzing other films.
Fermin sent me long lists of the film he liked
and we watched some of them, like <i>5 Centimeters Per Second,</i>
which we analyzed shot by shot,
looking for what he liked in the animation,
if we could do it technically.
It really was an intense 10-year process,
but it went by in a flash.
I met Fermin Muguruza on April 22, 2015.
While he was signing books in Barcelona,
Beñat and Ricardo, friends of mine in this profession,
suggested I meet him to talk about the Black is Beltza project,
about the comic Fermin had already produced.
I'd read it
and expressed my interest in joining the project.
I liked that it was about historical events,
which history itself has often kept hidden
or managed to cover up.
It had this assertive element
and opened up a range of things within a road movie
around a whole set of interesting historical events.
Then I suggested that Fermin work some more
on the script, because cinema is not the same as a comic,
and the script was too faithful to the comic.
The comic held up well, but transferred to the big screen,
it maybe needed to be retouched.
It's curious, because when Oriol called me,
just a week before I'd been talking to
some friends about the comic Black is Beltza.
Fermin had it all worked out.
What happened was that if you took a piece out
all the other pieces
tumbled down.
It was a kind of syllogism
and since I was new, I didn't get that
this syllogism was necessary,
but Fermin had it all under control.
And little by little we both put it to the scalpel.
It was hard for me because
I wasn't at the scalpel level, I had an axe.
I think in the film the excitement is more intense,
there's more tension, more action,
and above all, more emotional impact.
The characters undergo more in their own flesh,
and that means that the film, dramatically,
has greater intensity than the comic.
It's a complicated and ambitious project,
we've often discussed that.
It's very much an ensemble film.
There are many characters, though they don't feature extensively,
but they're little pills that contribute a lot to the period
and are necessary, essential.
The trick was some small sketches
that I sent before doing the complete character design.
They were sketches done on a notepad,
photographed and sent off.
There being so many characters,
and Fermin having such clear idea
of the style he wanted to give the film,
I think if we hadn't found this system...
It wasn't really that hard, because these prior sketches,
of the 65 that we did,
the first were virtually accepted straight off.
Otherwise, it would've been terrible, interminable,
or we wouldn't have been able to go on, with so many characters.
I thought it was a challenge and a chance for some fun.
He motivated me a lot.
Josep Homs motivated me a lot.
I like his work, I really like his comics.
And when I saw the main characters he'd done, I said "Wow,
it's almost a gift going on with this".
The Josep Homs style was already familiar to me,
the twists and turns of the drawing, you can go to many places,
but the terrain that Josep Homs covers
is where I'm totally at ease.
So it wasn't tough for me, on the contrary.
The year the story takes place, 1967,
I was 7 years old.
My first impressions of the world are just about from that time.
Not that it was a magical thing, it wasn't,
but it was easy to go with it, so I got things right first time.
Props are the objects in the background.
Props are active, the characters hold them,
or they're passive, in the background,
but there are a lot of elements that make up this background
and, above all, give the film soul.
Although I don't do this job often, I really like it,
because you "soak" the story.
For example, if Fermin tells me he wants a radio in a hotel,
not just any radio will do.
You have to look at the year, even the month it's happening...
In the U.S. in 1965 a lot of things were going on,
and I really like this preproduction, R+D, you might say.
My job was to choose the color pallet for the characters, extras, props,
the color of the skin, eyes, hair, clothes...
and put at the side a color pallet with number and tone.
In all there were 60 characters, 100 extras and another 60 props.
You had to recreate these historical documents,
those of COINTELPRO, the FBI counterespionage service,
which were actually declassified 40 years ago.
We chose to physically recreate them for the greatest realism.
We had to be really meticulous.
From reproducing the postmarks exactly,
the typeface of the typewriters,
the kind of paper, the paper grade, the color...
This would be the key paper,
with the undercover agents,
the names of the infiltrators and all the characters in the film.
Our job was to depict in the photos a style
that fitted well with the animation style,
and we did a lot of tests. We did a lot of styles
that fit the animation style,
then Fermin chose one that looked as if it was made with carbon paper.
Then, to give movement to the images,
we cropped these silhouettes to get several image planes
and created multi-plane movement on another program
so the image might have depth.
It was a whole digital process.
Though our tools simulate real charcoal,
they're actually digital.
I liked the project, I read the comic and it was great.
I liked the era it dealt with, the subject and the approach.
Then I talked to Fermin, he seemed so enthusiastic,
and he transmitted the excitement to do it.
We were there a couple of times, we met in Irún,
and he gave me a pendrive, he sent me photos via the Internet,
texts and movies and everything.
Fermin is exhausting because
he was so steeped in the subject, he'd bombard you.
The first weeks he called constantly with ideas he had,
new things he wanted to contribute.
The communication was great because he is tireless.
The period it dealt with interested me greatly,
it's a crucial time in the history of the universe,
it's where things began to change.
We've made, more or less, 300 settings.
Almost half were key backgrounds, main settings,
and the rest were production settings.
The style concept was to make the settings very realistic.
Some references come from the manga style.
At first we tried another style, just as realistic, but different.
but in the work process things change.
In the end our settings weren't so Japanese, so manga,
but more realistic, beautiful, and very tricky to make.
Hello, my name is Brenda Navarrete
and this is a song to the Orishas, in particular to Elegua,
for Fermin Muguruza's film
"Black is Beltza".
As well as creating original songs for the soundtrack,
other songs were used too.
You spent two years trying to get the rights to some songs.
How was that work?
There was no problem with the songs created for the film.
They were all friends of Fermin, the road was already half built.
All I did was manage them,
as with Manu Chao, Maika Makovski, Sonido Gallo Negro...
Other artists gave us more problems,
because the rights were in the hands of big multinationals,
such as the rights to Andy&Joy, Otis Redding or The Velvelettes.
The standout case was Otis Redding.
From the start it was a headache,
because the rights were divided between two large multinationals
and we had to agree to the conditions of both.
And when we were about to close the deal, they warned us
that we had to deal directly with Otis Redding's heirs
to get the cession.
It was a considerable setback
and a fresh challenge too.
We got the contact, got in touch with the family
and after many conversations they gave us permission,
and the joy was immense, yes.
When Fermin told me:
"We have to do the soundtrack in Fabra i Coats
because I have a house there,
I said to him: "Fermin, there's nothing there".
I suggested we try to soundproof it a little.
They put up some foam and it looked pretty cool.
And Fermin made it his own and that was fundamental for me.
He put up photos, things from Black is Beltza,
mementos of his from the exhibition.
I was to think of a better solution for setting up a mobile studio.
At first I didn't think it was a good idea.
Not recording in a regular studio I thought we'd be losing out.
In the end I think we won out because it was a very special place
with a special life to it.
In the choice of artists to work on the soundtrack,
I wasn't involved because Fermin said to me:
"I've spoken to the artists I want to do the music".
He was sure about the music he wanted in each section.
We worked like: "Raúl, here I'd like you to do this,
this is chase scene music..."
I'd say "Let's go this way" and I'd start to compose.
Fermin was very sure about the concept of the soundtrack.
One, two, three...
And the people who would be involved too.
Some I'd worked with before or we knew each other.
Anari and I knew each other, we'd worked together.
I'm a big fan and a friend.
Maika and I had crossed paths tons of times without really meeting,
and I wanted to get to know her and work with her.
Iseo was a discovery.
I actually didn't know Amel, who sang with Yacine.
I was very sure that the song had to assert the figure of the woman,
in this case Rimitti,
made by a generation younger than Rimitti,
who unfortunately died 10 years ago,
representing the regeneration of the Algerian woman
and the continuity of the struggle of the Algerian woman
to assert her rights.
I didn't know the Sey Sisters either and it was very cool.
It was very cool doing this soundtrack.
Being able to connect and to explain our story,
what's going on, this mix, and joining projects
like Black is Beltza,
which is what we're trying to do, is beautiful for us.
When we met Fermin, he spoke to us about the soundtrack
and we said: "Gee, that's great".
I'm so keen to see the movie
because it creates an energy
and a hope that it's possible to change a lot of things,
that's what we're hoping for.
I'm from Tanzania and I'm Basque and you're from Ghana and Catalan.
How would you explain your identity to the world?
It's easy, our parents are from Ghana and I was born in Catalonia.
My roots are African and Catalan.
It's actually very simple.
Fermin told me that after recording the guide vocals,
they prepared an animatic that was also his guide.
You already saw that the heart of the story was starting to beat.
An animatic means ordering a prior process, the storyboard,
putting all these images into the editing program with the audio,
and the first version of the film comes out, with the sketches.
How many have you done since the first in February 2017?
Some 75 or 80 animatics.
And it's important because lots of work is done every week,
lots of processing is in motion,
and in a week a lot of things can change inside the film.
It's important to update the animatic every week or two
to see if the continuity is going well
and to detect problems, if any.
-What garage? -San Fermin Garage.
Passports!
Search the van!
As for style, a clear reference was "Ghost in the Shell", for example,
we always talked about that style of animation.
It's a simple but stylish manga, it's well-drawn
and moves what has to move.
But we had many other references.
"Waltz with Bashir", similar but in another style.
In Tarantino's movies, "Kill Bill", for example,
there are animated sections that we took as a reference.
With loads of guides we created a new style
to put it one way.
Iñigo, what's the Red Book?
The Red Book is...
Before starting the movie it has to be explained shot by shot,
what characters appear, what the shot will be,
and that's the Red Book.
It's an odd name because it's our name,
I think Fermin made it up back in the day.
In Spanish it's called La Biblia,
and we called it the Red Book after Mao's Little Red Book.
When I'm sent a shot,
I correct it or give more information on the shot,
complete it with the necessary information
to put it in the style of the director.
We do a lot of children's animation,
so we were crazy about this kind of adult movies, we loved it.
And Fermin's vision,
we think it really makes the film work.
Straight away we spoke to Bea in production,
I spoke to Manu, who directs in-house animation,
and we began to see how to set up this crew.
When Alex called me and told me about this crazy story
we had on our hands,
there was some panic.
I'm usually the one who calms Alex down,
telling him how we'll do it and in what time frame.
But just seeing the first drawings, the first frames,
the idea Fermin had, the style he was after,
it was in motion.
As we explained the project people liked it
and got a little more involved than in a normal production,
working really hard,
getting a lot of shots done per day...
We have groups from Hampa that we set up in Madrid,
and in Galicia, that are drawing,
and they're distributed in Spain and overseas.
To run all this you need a good production department
to manage all this machinery,
because we've got a Ferrari that has to be controlled
or it falls apart on us.
You have to coordinate a lot of people,
and often you have to talk
to someone and the work of everyone else
depends on their work.
So in this case, for example,
we have someone who has to check all the shots
and once they're checked them, everyone else can work.
It's a constant battle,
hurrying up someone, then hurrying up others,
it means coordinating over 30 people
and that's a lot of crew so it gets complicated sometimes.
To start a film, first we have to work on the storyboard,
with very basic lines of the shot and the action.
Next, after the storyboard, we go to the layout,
which means finishing this drawing
with much cleaner lines,
the character put into the model created by the character designer,
and the framing necessary for the film itself.
From the layout we go to...
the animation.
The artists that work here
are studying the movement of the characters.
I'd say this is the key part because it's where
the characters come to life.
Here a clean-up is being done,
we're cleaning up the line,
after having animated all the characters.
In this process the line has to be perfect
because this is how the film is seen.
You fix the lines and facilitate the process for the next phase.
The final phase,
in the animation section,
is the intercalation,
where we add more drawings
to the animation of the artists
so that all the movement has greater fluidity
and is more believable.
And then, to finish,
is the color section.
The color artists
start to fill it in or fix some problems
we had in some lines or blemishes.
Once this phase is done,
we go to compositing, that is,
we take all the layers of this animation
in order to put them
into a composition that then goes straight to editing.
Here we can see a shot
made up of all the layers used in compositing.
And here, in Algeria?
Here, we're getting by.
We were working with a crew in Argentina,
fellow countrymen,
who took care of one part of the animation.
So we set a different kind of machinery in motion
because we worked on the start of the shots, the layouts,
which we sent to Argentina, they did the animations for us,
and these shots came back to our studio
to finish inserting them and going to color.
We were contacted to participate in the project Black is Beltza,
a project that interested and attracted us from the start
because we were going back to the roots of our profession,
which was when we began with the traditional animation drawing.
We sought an animation that wasn't so fluid
but the idea was, since they're human characters,
that they had certain complicated drawing characteristics,
the idea isn't to generate grand movement
and try to keep the character in line with the model.
That's the main thing in this project.
Plus, there are action scenes
where we have to see more polished animation,
more fluid animation.
Currently we have people working in the 3-D department
who are retouching vehicles,
making forays into the textures, doing rendering tests,
all this to integrate what is a 2-D film,
taking this 3-D into something similar to 2-D
that can merge with the characters
and so that there are no jumps on the screen.
I couldn't go to the recordings of all the voices.
Those done in Euskal Herria, yes.
But they recorded in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, London and L.A.
Still, when Fermin came back from each trip,
he'd tell me excitedly how all the actors had gotten involved.
I came to this project a long time ago, 8 years.
Fermin sent me a message saying he had a film in mind,
Manex Unanue was the protagonist and he wanted me to do the voice.
I said that, whatever it was, to go right ahead.
They're giants, not dolls.
For me the key to the project is what it says and how.
Manex Unanue's adventure through the culture of the 60s
is a cultural journey of getting to know different characters,
not just the adventure he has with the Black Panthers,
he also visits The Factory, Andy Warhol's studio,
he meets Che, goes to Algeria...
All these moments are very important to our story.
The main character, Manex Unanue,
for whom I do the voice, wanders from place to place,
taking the audience with him.
-You're as racist as them! -Let's go!
Xebero is a friend, Manex's best friend.
The protagonist is usually an adventurer, brave, who scores...
And he usually has a friend by his side,
who scores a little less, travels less...
But he's the best friend who keeps the protagonist's feet on the ground,
or at least he tries.
They told us no going to Harlem.
I got on board because I'm a friend of Fermin's,
I've known him for many years,
and it's our first collaboration together, I'm really excited.
I know he's very committed politically,
and thought it was a good idea to support him in some way
in this revolution called Black is Beltza.
The character of Laia is a cultural resister,
a Catalan living in Mexico, a refugee
and a very powerful girl.
Soon I'll be going back to Barcelona secretly
to join the anti-Francoist struggle.
You need a lot of faith for that.
I work on hunches.
So suddenly the project,
first because it comes from Fermin, whom I've particularly admired,
and then because the project plays with memory,
with events,
with a combination of nations, and of the comic too.
Spain has produced some great police
and some real bastards too.
But not a bastard sometimes, but just about all the time,
a natural-born bastard.
It's playing with the memory
of this cop who believes in his profession,
in a period when being in the Political-Social Brigade
meant you had a lot of clout.
He's the policeman we all must have inside, it seems,
even if it's in the memory,
it's a change to get that out.
Did you tell them one favor deserves another?
I think this project, as usual with Fermin,
is super-ambitious, but he gets into these pickles...
The whole history of art is the story of an obsession,
and he lines it up and bam, bam, until he pulls it off,
because he's methodical, hardworking,
and I think this story is great.
Now my dream is that this character of Ruth comes to life
and we can play it in film and not just animation.
My character, Warren Philips, is endearing, a great guy,
very tender, very...
A guy who's going to lose members of force,
a guy...
A disaster, a rotten egg,
he has links to the sewers of power,
a person who's... unsettling, very unsettling,
very cynical, you know the kind,
and if you do know them, they give you the shivers.
Watch out, you fucks.
To prepare for the character Muguruza sent me a YouTube link
of John Wayne talking,
so I'd try to do an accent that was American-Chicano,
but everything I do has a touch of
the accent of Vilanova I la Geltrú.
I play someone who works in the Cuban Consulate in Madrid.
He's a man who's playing with the times.
You don't really know if he's in favor of the regime,
the struggle going on in Cuba,
but he shows real emotion when he tells of Che Guevara's death.
Easy, easy, don't get nervous.
They're here to lend a hand,
right, Ramiro?
We're very influenced by the lexicon of Cuban cartoons.
And some of that vocal gesturing
was sought out in order to produce the voices,
to produce the different characters and appearances.
Don't tell him he's French,
he says he's Basque
and he gets mad.
I met Fermin in the first International Film Festival,
held in the Saharan refugee camps, in 2003.
It was a memorable meeting and festival because
a group of Spanish and Latin American artists got together,
not just from film, it was a very large group.
It was an unforgettable experience.
We were lucky to meet there, he was with the rock band
and they played one of the nicest concerts I've ever seen,
because in the middle of this desert full of <i>haimas,</i>
in the solitude and silence of that desert,
suddenly, in the spot that was kind of the camp dining area,
this rock band started to play
and we were so happy, all the people in the festival,
the people, the Saharans, started dancing,
it was an unforgettable party.
The journey will be long, the CIA's lying in fucking wait.
Now Fermin calls me for this project
and it's a joy for me and a source of pride
to be able to put the voice to one of the characters.
A lot is known about Cuba,
but I think there's much more to find out.
And this may be a story that gives some clues
as to what Cubans were involved in,
in so many places, in so many countries,
in so many social movements, so many struggles...
Cuban solidarity reached many parts of the world,
and a lot of people know this,
but I think this is a film that will awaken interest
in taking a look at history.
My character in this story feels a certain anger,
a frustration with love,
and he ends up betraying the cause a little.
But it was really fun
finding his voice because seeing the drawings,
the characterization that was done,
finding that Cuban voice, kind of unpleasant, grumpy,
but we had fun
and if you have fun I think the audience will too.
That woman's mine, you bastard.
The script of Black is Beltza is crazy!
The whole story, apart from very real,
is really unusual,
there are real things as well as fiction
but no one know which is which.
Just today I was informed
that the they're doing the PCC militancy process
and I play Comrade Antonovich.
Coincidences don't exist, it's concurrent randomness.
Sergeant Bravo, looks like the Basque is up to scratch.
I thought it was a really interesting script,
very didactic.
I liked it because it gave me a lot of historical facts I didn't know
in a very entertaining way.
I thought it was very interesting how the stories connect,
how it explains events from the past.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for.
I know there are many women in Arab history
that made a difference, like Cheikha Rimitti,
and did what they wanted.
So, hooray for them.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
My character goes to New York, to a cultural, folk scene.
They go from Euskal Herria, from Navarra,
to show off their culture.
He's quite a cowardly character and a contrast to the protagonist.
He's one of those evil characters that you need.
I love playing them in movies.
Sometimes I'm chosen to play the good guy,
but I really like playing this kind of character.
Don't you realize?
We won't have a chance like this again in our lives!
I though the script and the project were very interesting
because it's a revolutionary panorama
of the year 1967.
I play the role of Amira, an Algerian woman.
Amira welcomes the protagonists in Algeria
and they go to the cinema and see a very important film,
which was a benchmark film for me, "The Battle of Algiers".
"The Battle of Algiers" was filmed in the streets.
Looking at that period helps us to understand many things
and to see all the problems that haven't been solved
or have even gotten worse.
While you're with us, you have nothing to fear.
When you're asked to do a Quebec accent, it's high-risk...
I have a lot of friends in Quebec, we've been on tour, playing,
and it irritates them when French or Basque people
imitate their accent.
I wrote to Janick, a friend from years ago from the band Guerrilla.
I contacted him and I'm so grateful because he helped me loads.
Why do you say that?
To prepare for the accent I used the Stanislavski method,
which consists of being that person every day until it's recorded.
Some friends and Marieder, my girl, ended up tired of the character.
Yes, but in Quebec it'll be different,
we speak French here.
Imán, but everyone calls me Beirut.
Your French passport and languages
can be a big help to us.
This guy, when he wants to be, is a Basque son of a bitch
or a French fairy.
I'm playing the role of Esperanza.
She's from Oaxaca and she receives Juan Rulfo,
in Mexico City, and Christophe Moulin,
and takes them on a truly Oaxacan adventure,
if you know what I mean by very Oaxacan.
They go on a trip, you might say.
Don't worry, man, I have the key to this maze.
Really fun. He's very sure about what he wants,
but he also lets you play a lot,
and he makes you feel like you're doing great,
so, like a peacock, you open up.
It's beautiful, it's awesome that there are films
that link cultures. At this time in the world
having movies that deal with union and how cultures feed each other
is very important to the world right now.
Ignore Mr. Rulfo, he's a joker.
You're Rulfo, the writer?
Rulfo, right? Juan Rulfo.
The Juan Rulfo.
It really was very exciting.
Always with the fear about doing a tribute to Rulfo,
but I was very excited and a fucking brilliant experience.
One thing always knocked me out,
that a man who only wrote two books,
a novel and a book of short stories,
was so famous, so significant, so...
such a major influence on everyone else...
Rulfo is the daddy of magic realism.
Rulfo is many things.
I'm Rulfo the photographer.
There are lots of Rulfos.
I got to play Guardia Civil cop!
A cop on the French border, no less, in that period.
For me it was a luxury because actors always
love to play a son of a bitch,
and in my case a Guardia Civil in Euskal Herria in that period,
gets me hot to trot,
and he's a subordinate of Melitón Manzanas,
so that's the fucking business,
almost as exciting as when they did him in.
Nobody runs from the Guardia Civil if they've only got spare parts.
I find animation to be full of freedom,
it takes you to places that drama can't take you.
Don't you believe it, whitey, this is magic surrealism.
It was an honor for me to play Tin Tan,
a Mexican character,
a comedian and actor
that I grew up watching.
It was like following in his footsteps in terms of his charisma as an actor,
he's a clown but he's a genius.
I think it's important to make a film like this right now.
This film deals with something from the past, literally,
but what happens in this film is still happening now,
in the U.S., in Palestine, in Mexico, everywhere.
I think it's important that such things
are connecting the historical dots
so that people now can understand what's going on right now
with what went on in the past.
Generally, as an Algerian, they make me play a terrorist,
a thief, a sexist, or something...
but I love a project like this.
I don't know what you think,
but we're living in a historic time.
I didn't look too far to find my character
because my uncle was a member of the FLN
and was very much like this character.
I remember when my uncle came to our house,
and he was only 5' 3" but looked like a giant to me.
I remembered him because he's someone
from whom I later learned what a revolution is
and what a revolution involves,
especially an international revolution,
because Algeria didn't just have its war or its revolution,
it helped many independence or self-determination movements.
You have to leave Algeria at once.
Imagine, I've known Fermin since '85 or something,
and suddenly, as I say, he comes into my house
via the new technology of email
and asks me if I can do this job.
Obviously I said yes, I was willing to work with him
and do whatever was necessary.
Foley is an art that when you make a sound it's a leap into the void.
You never know what'll happen,
but you have to get your body to go with the image and create a sound.
Sometimes it's one way and other times it's different.
To work with cartoons, specifically this movie,
I integrated myself totally into the characters,
becoming a cartoon
and acting out what I saw in the movie.
Making a realistic movie is more like real life,
so you do get into the character,
but in cartoons it's another kind of action,
more cartoonish, with a fun aspect,
you give it a different approach.
Erik did the Foley, Edgar did the archive synchronics
and François did the ambient sounds.
All this supervised by Edgar,
as designer, mixer and expert on this subject,
and I, clearly, taking into account the look Fermin wanted,
gave shape to the whole project at the sound level.
The sound, naturally, was given special attention,
and it was done in various studios,
above all in the Elkar studios, with Víctor Sánchez.
But also with Xanti Salbador in Irusoin,
and Haritz Lete in the REC studio for postproduction.
It's really been a long but an exciting marathon.
At first, we only had voices,
guide voices.
We gradually substituted each of the characters
for the final character.
Recording the voices took over a year.
Every time we included a new voice
was exciting because you saw the direction it was all taking.
I'd say it's very rich in terms of sound.
It has voices and languages from all over the world,
impressive Foley and effects,
and the music is powerful, naturally.
This cocktail, mixing it in 5.1, is a challenge.
The editing comes from stereo and we have to shape it
to the 5.1 surround sound system.
What's a surround sound system? An enveloping sound.
A sound that envelops the whole cinema theater.
So, we have five channels, five speakers above and a subwoofer.
We can enrich the sound and split it up better in space.
Since here we have a configuration the same as a cinema theater,
we've balanced all the elements and their volume,
with the aim of putting everything in its place.
We worked on the film,
turning up some sounds, cleaning up some voices,
and, above all, turning it into something impactful.
When the film almost seems done, there are still lots of things to do.
There we find the people who in recent years
have been closest to Fermin.
This project has many offshoots, like this exhibition.
This exhibition also has parallel activities,
such as San Telmo Night, the screening of films,
the book "The Art of Black is Beltza",
the film itself,
the making of documentary...
Each of these elements has a different line of communication,
and I define these specific types of communication.
Our job was to film the making of the creation of the soundtrack
in a studio in Fabra i Coats,
and we also shot the activities
that emerged around the film in Barcelona,
such as meetings, talks, concerts,
generally all of Fermin's stay here in Barcelona.
I think it was very important to document
the entire creative process of Black is Beltza,
because it involved a lot of people,
not just those who were participating directly,
but Fermin, his way of being,
has created links between people, spaces like Fabra i Coats,
Ateneu L'Harmonia or the people in the Sant Andreu area.
Talks were held, concerts,
and all this meant that as the links were growing
and as a result the structure, the film grew as well
and people participated who at first weren't foreseen,
they contributed new things.
Without this context the end result wouldn't have been the same.
So seeing this whole process now
is a way to understand the film.
I've helped Fermin at all the stages,
first defining what we had to do and then creating the work teams
and controlling the interface between them.
Fermin sets the patterns and you follow them to the objectives.
Fermin says you were his left hand. Why does he say that?
Sometimes he said to me: 24/7...
I've tried to be at his disposal at all hours.
We said we had to give it everything to achieve it, and that's what we did.
The left hand is a help,
but we need the right hand,
and Fermin has always been very firm about this.
Apart from being the production director, you're Fermin's partner.
How do you fight for so many years for something until you achieve it?
In a couple the relationship and work have to be one, they're not separate.
10 years ago Fermin showed me that photo of the giants
and I realized that there was an interesting story behind it.
Later I read the script
and fell completely in love with it.
In the end, it became almost a physiological necessity,
we had to complete the project, no matter what.
What were the most critical moments?
The most critical moments were the financing problems
and the excessive bureaucracy.
And the best?
The best we experienced with the relationship we had
with all the people on the project, the people we've met,
all those people who signed on for our idea of Black is Beltza,
who spread their energy and made Black is Beltza possible.
Like you, Amaia.
Today, when they try to close the borders and the seas
to people coming from other places,
I want to teach you a word in Swahili, my father's language.
Welcome is "karibu".
Amaia, I am Black is Beltza too!
-Me too! -Me too!
Let's hit the sea!
WELCOME
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