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Berta Guindano

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ETERNO THE DOCUMENTARY

     After months of hard work, the day finally came.

Everything comes at the right time. The shooting began in mid-December and in a somewhat uncertain manner. Pablo and Miguel were excited about the idea of continuing the project “Monasteries: Past, Present, and Future”, but they were not yet aware of the scope of this story. As the months and filming time went by, and as they were discovering more spaces and meeting new people, they became more and more enthusiastic.

Obras en el Monasterio de La Oliva. Navarra

One of the first impressive moments was to see the final phase of the works in the church of the Monastery of La Oliva, to which the photo above corresponds.

Cuenca, Burgos, Soria, Palencia, and the province of Valladolid were part of the itinerary, and the journey itself made them aware of the lack of knowledge of the heritage that belongs to them.

 

Miguel durante el rodaje en Cuenca

Indeed, this documentary aimed to explore the reason behind that collective ignorance regarding monasteries, as well as the prejudice and suspicion towards these places, a feeling that is also collective, not just among young people. The digital magazine Rehabilita con éxito publishes an article about us and this work, and presents the situation with a very graphic analogy, using a renovation of the Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu football stadium as an example. You can read about it at this link.

 

En la biblioteca de La Merced en Cuenca

The time the authors of this documentary dedicated to this project, the anecdotes about the journey, the conversations they had – all these were laying the groundwork for them to later tackle their first creation of some significance and as professionals. “Ab Aquis” was their first attempt at creating a documentary while they were still students of the Audiovisual Degree Programme. Here you can read a piece of news that El Día de Soria newspaper published back then. Ab Aquis a documentary against oblivion.

To make ETERNO, they travelled between January and June, ending with the volunteering week at the Monastery of La Oliva. Visiting cities and monasteries in the low touristic season, with few tourists around, or even being alone, as happened during the filming in San Isidro de Dueñas, made the work easier because there were better opportunities to talk calmly with the people they met and, as  a result, enjoy these special moments and reflect on their experience.

In the summer, they edited a trailer and then took some time off before diving into the full editing at the end of August. The trailer they released at the end of July can be seen here.

The volunteering days for 2024 can be seen at this link An Adventure at the Cistercian Abbey of La Oliva.

Pablo Beorlegui durante el rodaje de ETERNO en La Oliva. Foto de @jlarce_

Everything was moving in the right direction. A reflection by the author Antonio Monegal comes to mind here: “It is necessary to understand culture not as a selection of works or products, but as a complex system through which human beings negotiate their relationship with the environment; a series of models, norms and options that govern both individual and collective conduct”. How is the relationship with the environment such as the models, norms and options of today’s society? Are they norms and options freely chosen and consciously assumed?

   At the Navarra Film Library


Miguel and Pablo informed the association’s management about the arrangements they were making with the Navarra Film Library to be able to present “ETERNO” in that venue. All those months of work deserved a good screen with ample space for the audience. Additionally, in the meantime, an article had already been published about this ongoing work, so expectations were high. You can read it here.

Miguel Arguibide y Pablo Beorlegui con la directiva de Patrimonio para Jóvenes

The idea that the documentary was going to be screened in the film library excited us, but at the same time, we were somewhat afraid of such a large venue —would it fill up? Well, yes… it was completely full. Not only were there our families and friends but also the public who usually attend the film library’s screenings, and whom we hadn’t known until that day. What a great time the kids had taking pictures with their loved ones next to the poster announcing ETERNO!

Pablo Beorlegui con su familia

MIguel Arguibide con su familia

Pablo and Miguel presented the audience the idea behind ETERNO and talked about their journey, in both literal and metaphorical sense, which led to their personal growth. In this sense, their experience was like that of the photographer José Luis Martínez Arce the previous year.

Pilar Ortuño del Fraile also had her big moment. Seeing the poster in large format that took her so long to design and that she had to start over so many times. Working on this concept involved hours of discussions with the authors of ETERNO to make sure that the result was the best. And here she is standing next to her work.

The screening was followed by applause and then a lively discussion. For many viewers, it was the first time to see monasteries, and one of the questions that arose was about how the monks had treated the authors of the documentary, about the monastic guest houses and their functioning, and whether this filming had changed their lives in any way.

Miguel Arguibide y Pablo Beorlegui presentando ETERNO

There were moments of deep reflection as well as funny ones.

Un momento del coloquio

The three people in charge of Patrimonio para Jovenes also participated in the informal talk.  It was an opportunity to introduce the association to those who hadn’t known it yet and for us to be heard and for questions to be answered by those of us who are responsible for this entire adventure.

Interviene Berta Guindano

All that’s left is to thank everyone. First of all, we would like to give special thanks to Miguel Arguibide and Pablo Beorlegui for taking on the challenge of this work. We know it wasn’t easy and it’s very possible that they will still make some corrections to the first version. Thanks to all the communities that have welcomed them in their monasteries and to all the people who have attended them in museums, cultural centres, and hotels that were once monasteries. Now we must reflect on what we are going to do with this heritage and become aware of this precious legacy.

And finally, many thanks to Berta Carrillo, who offered taking the photos and made it possible for us to have images to remember.

 

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A congress in Cracow

   A great surprise at the end of December 2023 

 In December 2023 we received the news of being  chosen as one of the finalists  in the Innovator of the Year Award  organised by the institution Future for Religious Heritage.

It made us so proud due to the fact that Patrimonio para Jovenes is a small association and we competed  against large entities and projects. About the winner and the finalists  you can read here

And the congress was held in Cracow, which was  another surprise and joy. Patrimonio para Jovenes is 12 years old and during this time whenever we had a chance to participate in an international congress, it was always in Madrid.

Being shortlisted as finalists  brought us a kind of obligation to travel to Poland although it  meant a big effort in terms of time and money.

Llegada de Berta y Pilar al aeropuerto de Cracovia

After considering it carefully, we thought it was worth travelling. It was an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life working on religious heritage. During the congress we had to explain that Patrimonio para Jovenes does not dedicate itself exclusively to religious buildings.

Cracow  has also a special sentimental value  to us. It is a city that has a lot to do with the life of the pope Saint John Paul II, who is one of the patrons of Patrimonio para Jovenes.

Another decision was about who to send to the congress. We were thinking of some of the young people that have been working on the project about monasteries over these years, among whom are: the architect Lucia Ruiz Ullate, Jose Luis Martínez Arce, Pablo Ramos Aguado or Pablo Beorlegui and Miguel Arguibide.

Pablo y Miguel en un momento del rodaje

Pablo and Miguel are now working very hard on the edition of “ETERNO – the documentary about what we were never taught”. A preview can be seen here

An article about this is also available on the FRH web here

All the aforementioned people  have worked hard, with creativity and professionalism, although all of them are very young (in their twenties) and the oldest one is 33 years old.

Unfortunately, not everybody has a good level of English, and the ones with high level did not have free days to travel to Cracow. Nevertheless, all of them are the  true protagonists of this award and you can see them in many entries of this blog.

We would like to give special thanks to the volunteers  of summer 2023 and  June 2024. You can read more about these activities here.

The pleasure of meeting new people

Not only is the city amazing, but the people we met there. Special thanks to Rocio Sanchez and Jordi Mallarach

Chiara Curti, Pilar Gómez Bahamonde, Melanie Kay Smith, Maria Arno, among many other people.

Lilian Grootswagers was the person in charge of presenting the winner’s and finalists’ projects.

Lillian Grootswagers explica nuestro proyecto

And here we are with Jordi and Rocio and the rest of the  awardees.