Fjalen Eta Terrorist Group

A look at the impact of Spain’s Basque conflict on ordinary people on both sides, such as the widow of a man killed by the ETA who returns to her home village after the 2011 ceasefire between the separatist group and the Spanish government, and her former intimate friend, the mother of a jailed terrorist.

The birth of the Basque terrorist gang ETA and its first attack, of which José Antonio Pardines, a Guardia Civil traffic officer, was the victim.

The Basque Country, Spain, 1980s. In an atmosphere of tension and fear, where the harassment of separatist nationalism and the violence of ETA terrorist gang are a constant in life, Eloy, a young civil guard from Madrid, arrives at the Intxaurrondo base, in San Sebastián, as a volunteer; a hostile environment that causes havoc among his companions: alcoholism, depression and suicides reign. The so-called “Northern Syndrome” kills as much as bombs do.

Mario, a member of the terrorist group ETA during Franco's dictatorship, drastically changes the course of his life when, with democracy in place, the organization decides to continue killing.

On June 7, 1968, ETA assassinates José Pardines, a Guardia Civil officer. On May 3rd, 2018, a communiqué from the terrorist gang announces the dissolution of its structures. Fifty years of terror, fear, pain, truces, negotiations and 826 deaths lie between the two dates.