How Black is Beltza and Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa Rewrite the Past in Ink and Fire
History is a strange beast. It wears the uniform of the conqueror, carries the flag of the powerful, and often leaves the voices of the oppressed crumpled at the bottom of the archive. But every now and then, someone grabs a pen, or a camera, and dares to scribble over the official record. That someone, in this case, is Talka Records and Films, and the scribbles are Black is Beltza (2018) and its sequel Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa (2022). Together, they are not just animated political thrillers — they are fists raised in celluloid, breathing resistance into the margins of memory.
These films are not simply about history. They’re in combat with history — or at least the version of it that has been trimmed, whitewashed, and packaged for mass consumption. If mainstream historical narratives are glossy textbooks funded by old empires, Talka’s films are graffiti on the walls of the past — messy, urgent, and gloriously defiant.
The Puppet Parade and the Politics Beneath
Let’s start at the beginning, in Black is Beltza. Based on a real-life event from 1965, the film opens with the San Fermín festival in New York, where a group of Basque puppeteers is told that their Black giants can’t be part of the parade. And just like that, the mask slips. The white face of polite celebration crumbles, revealing a snarling jaw of American racism beneath.
From there, protagonist Manex embarks on a whirlwind journey through the geopolitical storm of the 60s. Cuba, Algeria, the Black Panthers, the CIA — history doesn’t stand still for a second. But this isn’t a James Bond fantasy. It’s a scrapbook of revolution, espionage, and colonial fallout, seen through the eyes of those who lived outside the safety net of empire.
Talka doesn’t just throw historical events at the viewer; it interrogates them. What does it mean to be a witness when the whole world is caught in ideological crossfire? Who gets to be called a “freedom fighter” and who gets labeled “terrorist”? In Black is Beltza, nothing is clean-cut. Ideologies bleed. Lines blur.
Ainhoa: Inheriting the Fire
Then comes Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa, and with it, a generational torch-passing. The sequel follows Manex’s daughter Ainhoa as she steps into her father’s revolutionary shadow during the turbulent 1980s. From Afghanistan’s war zones to Lebanon’s resistance cells, she is a child of exile navigating a world where the colonial game has only changed jerseys.
Ainhoa doesn’t scream revolution — she breathes it. Her story isn’t one of grand speeches or choreographed gunfire, but of quiet rage, inherited trauma, and the exhausting weight of being born into a world shaped by other people’s wars. In her journey, we see how colonization isn’t just a chapter in history books; it’s a ghost that haunts borders, prisons, and even lullabies.
And Talka doesn’t pretend otherwise. Instead, they lean in, magnify the ghost’s silhouette, and dare us to look closer.
Reclaiming History, Frame by Frame
What makes these films political art rather than just art with politics is their commitment to storytelling from the periphery. Through animation — a medium often relegated to fantasy or children’s stories — Talka creates a surreal yet grounded world where oppression is stylized but never softened.
Animation becomes a tool of subversion. When the screen is not bound by physical reality, it can stretch, twist, and distort history to expose the truth. Tanks rumble through cities like iron beetles. Drones buzz like angry gods. The colors of revolution bleed into the night sky like fireworks — beautiful and fatal.
Just like how narratives of resistance can be found in unexpected mediums, some find unexpected escapes in the most digital corners — even places like 22casino, where players from all over the world log in to explore games that blend chance with strategy. The 22casino login portal, much like the opening frame of a film, is where some choose to disconnect from mainstream noise — or at least tilt the odds a little in their favor.
And while the films play fast with form, they are dead serious about content. Talka’s universe is populated by real events, real movements, and real consequences. Each scene is a rebuttal to sanitized timelines and heroic colonial narratives. The past, in their hands, becomes a battlefield — and they fight back with ink and fire.
Beyond the Screen: A Toolbox for Consciousness
Black is Beltza and Ainhoa aren’t just stories; they are tools. Educational, revolutionary, deeply human. They invite the viewer to become suspicious of what they think they know — to question monuments, to challenge textbooks, to ask what was left out and why.
Talka’s work belongs in classrooms and protest marches alike. Their films are equal parts elegy and war cry, mourning lost revolutions while urging us to keep dreaming.
And there is something deeply personal in the way Talka threads the Basque identity into this global struggle. It’s a reminder that colonialism is not some faraway phenomenon limited to African deserts or Asian jungles — it’s in Europe, too. In every banned language, every disappeared activist, every culture bulldozed in the name of “unity.”
Why It Matters (Still, Always)
In a time where history is being rewritten in school boards and banned books lists, Talka’s films are more urgent than ever. They are cinematic acts of memory, designed to survive even when archives are burned and truth is rebranded.
To watch Black is Beltza and Ainhoa is to listen to history’s background noise — the voices that were silenced, the stories that were never “official” enough to print. It’s to light a match in the archive and watch the shadows dance.
And while the world scrolls and forgets, these films insist: Remember. Not the version written by victors, but the one smuggled across borders, scribbled in margins, and whispered between generations.
As Ainhoa walks into warzones with the blood of revolution in her veins, and Manex dives headfirst into a world that wants to erase his kind, we’re reminded that decolonizing history is not about correcting typos — it’s about dismantling the entire printing press.
History is not over.
It’s just waiting for a new narrator.
And thanks to Talka, that narrator has arrived — pencil sharpened, camera loaded, ready to redraw the map.
