In 2007 filmmaker Arantza Santesteban was arrested and sentenced to prison under the accusation of terrorism due to her affiliation to a party which fought for the independence of the Basque Country, a party which had been declared illegal by the Spanish government a few years prior. This documentary represents the testimony of the 918 nights spent in prison. What begins as a classic documentary on the violation of the freedom of expression imperceptibly turns into a personal exorcism process and an effort towards recovering the memories erased by the years of detention. The director tries to restore the past, but the few archival images from that era don’t seem to be enough. Neither narrative, nor dialogue, nor introspection satisfies her, and the movie becomes an almost frantic attempt at finding the truth which slips through her fingers. The movie alternates between confessions, memories, and intense moments of liberation from an incomprehensible present – an act of love between two women, a decadent night in the club -, which have no direct connection to the past, but are still overburdened by its traumas. When released from prison, Arantza is welcomed like a hero by the group of activists she used to be a part of. Paradoxically, the feeling of alienation persists and only intensifies as she regains the freedom she lost. Caught between the identity of a terrorist and that of a hero-martyr, and failing to recognize herself in any of these, the filmmaker escapes to Germany – a place where she can once again be a “nobody,” a “tabula rasa.” From the sphere of politics the film plunges into that of the personal, unfolding as a refined, yet unsentimental study of the way in which political and social identities smother the identity of the individual. (Monica Stan)