Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

From 1936 to 1939, a terrible civil war devastated Spain. To protect their children from the atrocities of the war, many Spaniards sent their children to safe havens. In Belgium, 200 Basque children were taken in by Ghent families. Naturally, these events were very emotional for the children, their families that stayed behind and their foster families. After the war, Franco came to power. Many children returned to Spain, but others chose to stay in Belgium and made a life here.

Years later, the organisation Los Niños de la Guerra reunited the Spanish refugees. Trefpunt wishes to commemorate these events and asked Ghent composer laureate Dick van der Harst, film director Fabio Wuytack and screen writer Brecht Vanmeirhage to create a multimedia work of art on this theme.

Fabio Wuytack is a young film director who showed his talent with the short documentary Made in Italy, which won prizes at festivals in Belgium and across the globe. Using new recordings and archive material from the Filmoteca Vasca, he created a visually powerful story combining emotion, history and imagination.

Dick van der Harst is known for his skill, his love of experiment and the multicultural dimension of his work. For this project he put his musical imagination to work and drew inspiration from traditional Basque folk music to create a score perfectly suited to the film.

At the screening of the film, the score will be performed live by a choir and an orchestra conducted by Dick van der Harst. They will be joined by two Basque txalaparta players, a Basque singer and a Basque musicologist.