The Ibarretxe brothers and producer Edu Carneros at the time of ‘You only die twice’ (1997).
Josemi Ibarretxe’s daughter shoots a documentary to vindicate the work of Bilbao filmmakers, who died prematurely after shooting three feature films as crazy and free as their authors
The Ibarretxe brothers dreamed of Bilbollywood in the 90s. They fantasized about studies on the land occupied by Altos Hornos de Vizcaya and a heliport where the stars would land. “And on Mount Serantes, a gigantic billboard: Bilbollywood,” recalls Edu Carneros, producer and accomplice of those wonderful madmen, who had time to shoot three feature films in a twenty-four-year career. Ironies of fate, reflects Carneros, the new tax incentives will make Biscay in January the most advantageous place to shoot in all of Europe. The dream of the Ibarretxe, in the end, can come true.
As if it were a curse, the members of the clan that insisted on making films from Bilbao have been disappearing one after another. Javier Ibarretxe died first in 2014, at the age of 52, producer of the films of a family that turned the nautical supply company in Las Arenas inherited from his father, Ibarretxe & Co., into the theater of operations for his ravings. In 2018 Josemi left, the most restless of the ten brothers, who tried to prolong the pleasure and communion they felt as children, when they laughed out loud at the films of the Marx brothers, Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Last January Esteban passed away, who signed as director or co-director the three feature films of the Ibarretxe factory: ‘You only die twice’ (1997), ‘Sabotage!’ (2000) and ‘An almost perfect world’ (2011).
Josemi, Santiago and Esteban Ibarretxe in their production company in 2000. /
Jone Ibarretxe, Josemi’s daughter, and Nere Falagan direct a documentary produced, of course, by Edu Carneros, which reconstructs the history of Bilbao filmmakers and vindicates their legacy. Still in the development phase, ‘Esto no es Hollywood’ takes its name from the ETB program hosted by Antxon Urrosolo in which Carneros met the brothers. The year was 1989 and they needed young people to make movies. Carneros went to the Getxo film club at the Gran Cinema de Las Arenas, where some crazy people wearing kepis sang and distributed numbers as they entered for a raffle to liven up the screening of ‘The Bald Artist’s Revenge’.
Some pacharanes in Romo served that night to forge a friendship that spread professionally in short films such as ‘In vino veritas’ and ‘Malditas se las suegras’, commercials and the leap to feature length in 1997 after convincing producer Andrés Vicente Gómez, who came to Bilbao to give a talk and returned to Madrid in his white Jaguar with the script for ‘You only die twice’ under your arm. That delusional comedy with Álex Angulo and Santiago Segura told the story of an actor typecast in zombie roles… precisely because he was a zombie.
‘This is not Hollywood’, one of the five projects selected to compete for the 2022 Zinebi Networking EITB Prize endowed with 10,000 euros, will also stop at the shooting of ‘Sabotage!’, a period entanglement set in Waterloo with David Suchet as Napoleon and Stephen Fry of Wellington. The Vitorian producer Iñaki Núñez sold it as a very expensive epic (650 million pesetas at the time), which did him no favors. Half a thousand extras came to meet in the fields of Zuia to recreate the historic battle. After its failure at the box office, the Ibarretxe family took twelve years to direct ‘Un mundo almost perfect’, a robbery comedy presented at the Malaga Festival that had 2,500 spectators.
Josemi and Javier Ibarretxe on the set of ‘Sabotage!’ in 1999. /
“Everyone who worked with them has an indelible memory. They were independent, cultured and bohemian people, who always had the dream of working in Bilbao in the midst of the exodus of Basque filmmakers to Madrid in the 1990s”, praises Edu Carneros. The children of Juan Antonio Ibarretxe, Republican pilot of a Vultee from the first squadron of Group 72, also spent time in the merchant navy before dedicating themselves to cinema. Javier was a machinist on the Hanging Bridge. His figure is remembered with a smile, but “his work has fallen into oblivion,” laments his producer.
Josemi Ibarretxe’s 2,000. /
«My father used to say that his work would live on after his death. I’m not so sure»
Trained at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Josemi Ibarretxe was the most bohemian of the brothers. Scriptwriter in the first stage of ‘Vaya semanita’, mythical is the anecdote of the filming of ‘The Bald Artist’s Revenge’, when he was sent to take care of the catering. He gave himself a tribute at home followed by a nap, leaving the team without food. “I had very interesting conversations with my father, he was very creative and intelligent, a walking encyclopedia,” recalls Jone Ibarretxe, 32, who also had fun with his uncles, “whom he had on a pedestal.” A member of the Cecilia Payne group, Jone also works on audiovisual issues and his point of view will be essential in a documentary that will not be ready until 2024. There will also be room for “the dark parts” of the directors, to whom commercial success has always been elusive. «My aita was very proud to be an artist, he always said that, even if he died, his work would live on. I’m not so sure », he regrets.