Basque filmmaker Oskar Alegria revisits his ancestral home in this testament to childhood’s sense of play and wonder. Although the small island he explored as a child has since been flooded, Alegria sets up camp on the riverbank, immersing himself in the landscape for the summer. Diagrams, maps, drawings, memories, and portents are artfully assembled and layered throughout Zumiriki, as Alegria settles into a slow, austere life and observes both decay (trees in the flooded river as they rot and fracture) and rebirth (a quest for a spirited and elusive cow). With heroic patience and a poetic eye for detail, Alegria surrenders to the power of place, rescuing what has been submerged; both the flooded island and the memories of his childhood. Personal history is illuminated alongside natural history, as the filmmaker becomes embedded in the rhythms of the weather, the habits of nesting cormorants, the nocturnal exploits of animals, and other such wonders. -KR

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