We present to you the series of animations created together by the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals and the Unesco Chair on World Language Heritage. The five animations are based on folktales from around the world and are now available in Basque and Catalan. These tales have been produced for the programme Una mà de contes of Catalunya.

The selected stories originate from oral traditions: the Basque Country and some indigenous communities in South America, Central America, North America and Australia. Specialists from the Unesco Chair on World Language Heritage of the UPV/EHU and the technical and artistic team of the programme Una mà de contes have been in charge of the documentation, selection and monitoring of the stories. The adaptation was the work of Mireia Vidal, children's writer and winner of the Serra de Oro prize. Gustavo Rosemffed (Gusti) was in charge of the illustrations, winner of the Bologna Children's Book Fair prize and illustration teacher at the EINA school. Manuel Barrios Lucena and Isidre Rosich Borges were the director and producer respectively.

The animations were presented on the 2024 International Mother Language Day. All information here.

This animation brings us a theme from Basque mythology, that of a flower of power granted to humans by Mother Earth, a flower called Eguzkilorea or Flower of the Sun. How is it possible that the human being could have found in the darkness of the night the necessary light to survive the fear of the unknown? Neither the Moon nor the Sun were enough to overcome the fear of the darkness of the night... Mother Earth offered humans the Eguzkilorea, which can be found today in the mountains of the Basque Country.

Animation in Basque and Catalan.

This animation brings us back to the time when human beings formed the world by dreaming it together. In the beginning, each person dreamt the world according to its own particularities, ... and that is why the world is so rich and beautiful! Have human beings become entangled in that chain of dreams? This story offers a solid and beautiful reflection so that all beings in the world can continue to dream and live together.

See it here in Basque and Catalan.

Human beings have lost their way in the forests, in the deserts, in the mountains and perhaps nowadays in the cities... we feel afraid. But when he joins nature, he can find his way, and also the way back home. This story brings us back to the times when humans talked to animals and accepted their help, times when we were not afraid of jaguars. From when we were jaguars.

See it here in Basque and Catalan.

From an early age, people want to explore the world and also to go to the sea. In languages all over the world, we have a wide variety of stories about people that travel and get lost at sea, the sea that draws the boundaries of the earth. This story is about the need for human beings to behave moderately and respectfully towards the environment even in places where the landscape and the ice seem infinite.  The story is presented as a long journey of learning, thanks to the generosity of all the animals that live in the sea and that will end up being the protagonist's family.

See it here in Basque and Catalan.

Humans have learned to take care of the vegetation around them... and to use it too! and to make use of it too! Man has obtained medicines from the study and exploration of vegetation, together with nature, in balance. But what happens when he behaves greedily and selfishly, when he unnecessarily lacks the resources of nature that are curative for him by using and crushing the fruits of nature? There is something to learn in this story...

See it here in Basque and Catalan

The Chair, as usual, and with a focus on minority languages, proposed another challenge: based on the example of the lining, to dub these new stories also in other minority languages of the world. The Meeting of Young Speakers of Minority Languages (HIGA) provided us with a suitable setting for this. Thanks to some of the speakers who took part, Eguzkilore was dubbed into the following languages.