You can now watch ‘Irati’ online, the medieval fantasy film in Basque that has broken all records in the Basque Country

Nominated for 5 Goya Awards, and after two months on the billboard in which more than 150,000 viewers have enjoyed the film, ‘Irati’ has arrived on Amazon Prime Video.

The second feature film Paul Urkijo behind the surprising ‘Errementari’ is a brave bet for the fantastic cinema of sword and sorcery as they are rarely remembered in Spanish cinema and, if you hurry me, in international cinema of the last decades. Filmed entirely in Basque In different locations in Araba, Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Navarra and Huesca, ‘Irati’ recounts, as if it were a traditional tale told from father to son, the dark historical stage of the 8th century with magical elements of basque mythologyloosely inspired by characters from the graphic novel ‘El ciclo de Irati’ by JL Landa and J. Muñoz and other Basque legends and historical events such as the battle of Roncesvalles.

In the words of Urkijo himself: “‘Irati’ is the fantastic medieval adventure film that I have always wanted to tell. I am fascinated by Basque Mythology and ‘Irati’ is an epic tribute to that dark and fascinating world of legend.”

The director revealed to PHOTOGRAMS the influence of ‘Princess Mononoke‘ to make ‘Irati’: “For me it is THE film. It has everything. And everything is in my cinema and especially in ‘Irati’.”, but also that of witchcraft and sword films like ‘The Lord of War’ (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1965), ‘Excalibur’ (John Boorman, 1981) or ‘The Dragon of the Lake of Fire’ (Matthew Robbins, 1981)demonstrating that fantastic cinema is where Urkijo is most comfortable: “This is the wonderful world of legends, tales and beings that exist because everything that has a name exists, in which I want to remain”, and he added: “I want to continue being the boy to whom his father told extraordinary stories when we went to the forest. I want to share them with viewers. And I also want to be the kid who discovered, many of them on video or on TV, adventure movies, sword and sorcery movies, which are the ones I’ve always wanted to do.”

They head the proposal the “giant” Eneko Sagardoy (‘Handia’), Edurne Azkarate, Iñigo Aranbarri, Nagore Aramburu, Elena Uriz, Iñaki Beraetxe, Ramón Agirre, Kepa Errasti and the actress of ‘La casa de papel’ Itziar Itunorecent winner of the Fotogramas de Plata for Best Television Actress for the series ‘Intimacy’.