In August 1936, more than a hundred women and men of different nationalities arrived in the Basque Country, responding to the Republic's anti-fascist call to fight against the military coup. Among them was Esther Zilberberg, alias ESTOUCHA. Polish, Jewish, communist, and a medical student in Belgium, she was barely 20 years old. Our film follows her exciting experiences in the Basque Country during the war. That eventful period was only the beginning of a personal and collective epic (that of those first internationalists who arrived in our land), buried for decades in oblivion. After the Civil War, during World War II, she was part of the French Resistance against the Nazis, a struggle for which she had to separate from her young son Georges. Estoucha ended up being arrested. She was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the Mauthausen extermination camp, but she survived. After being freed, she was able to get her son back, although she had lost her husband during the war. Now, through her son, now in his eighties, we recover her memory, accompanying him on his trip to the Basque Country to visit the places his mother told him so much about. Thus, in addition to being a historical documentary, the film becomes a physical and emotional journey, in which Georges discovers the secrets of that adventure in the fight against fascism.

Documentary

75’

2028