Medem is a Spanish director and screenwriter, one of the representatives of Basque cinema. He graduated with a degree in medicine, but during his studies, he wrote film columns for the daily newspaper La Voz de Euskadi. His first film was the short film El Ciego (1974), after which he made several more. He made his feature film debut with Cows (Vacas, 1992), which tells the story of a clash between two Basque families. He afterwards made The Red Squirrel (La ardilla roja, 1993), Earth (Tierra, 1996), The Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Amantes del círculo polar, 1998), Sex and Lucia (Lucía y el sexo, 2001) and a documentary about the Basque nationalist movement The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone (La pelota vasca. La piel contra la piedra, 2003).