SECTIONS // PANORAMA OF THE SPANISH DOCUMENTARY

Nola?

Out of Competition
Fermín Muguruza Ugarte
65' / 2015 / Spain
Web: http://www.muguruzafm.eus/
Basque, English
English and spanish subtitled

“NOLA?” has many parallels with an episode of “Treme”: the songs are very well integrated, related to what the protagonists talk about. Music converts itself, in that way, into another character in the narration. The central thread is WWOZ announcer George Ingmire, also a documentary maker and author of various radio essays about the impact of the hurricane. With his critical and ironic speech he alternates the recording of the album with observations about the state of things.
The documentary opens with an useful montage of images in black and white and colour (cotton plantations, the Ku Klux Klan, racial segregation, the disaster of Katrina... a wink to the opening credits of “Treme”?) to move to Ingmire in the studio of WWOZ saying that ten years have passed and that Fermin Muguruza has come to New Orleans to get together with musicians and give his songs a “New Orleans flavour”.
From this moment on, the speech of the DJ and the declarations of various people (the musicians of “Irun Meets New Orleans”), but also the film-makers Aaron Walker and Lily Keber) alternate with archive footage, spectacular photographs and the recording of the songs. The influence of the humidity and the heat on the music give way to a “Kolore bizia” from “Borreroak baditu milaka aurpegi” (1993) by Negu Gorriak – of Carribean outpourings and explosion of brass – with the solo at the end by the cellist Helen Gillet.
The effects of Katrina, the inefficiency of the North American government, the treatment by the media who considered residents of the city as “refugees” and their return home after their diaspora find their treatment in a tremendous “Etxerat!” - from “Kolpez kolpe” by Kortatu (1988) – with the second line cadence “This disaster and what happened made us musicians stay united. And, conscious of it or not, strengthened the music”, you can hear.

Director's Biography

FERMÍN MUGURUZA ( IRÚN 20/04/1963 ) His first documentary was "Bass-que Culture" and was recorded in Jamaica in 2006. Then he made "Check Point Rock, Songs from Palestine" (2009). In 2010 11 documentaries about music were making in Arab countries, commissioned by the television network Al-Jazeera, and awarded in the In-Edit Festival of Barcelona. In 2012 he directed "ZULOAK" movie that was premiered in the Zabaltegi section of the San Sebastian Festival. In 2013 he co-directed with Daniel Gómez "No More Tour", a documentary on his last tour. In 2015 presents "Nola?".