Official synopsis
In the year 2000, Nevenka Fernández, 24 years old, Finance Councilor in the Ponferrada City Council, suffered relentless persecution, both sentimental and professional, by the mayor, a man accustomed to doing his will politically and personally. . Nevenka decides to report, although she knows that she will have to pay a very high price: her environment does not support her, the society of Ponferrada turns its back on her and the media subjects her to a public trial.
His case started the #metoo movement in Spain long before the term was invented. A story inspired by real events that turns its protagonist into a pioneer by taking an influential and popular politician to court for sexual and workplace harassment for the first time.
Criticism – By Juana Samanes
It is considered the first case in Spain of a politician being convicted for harassment. This is the true story of Nevenka Fernández, 24 years old and Councilor for Finance in the Ponferrada City Council, who suffered, in 2000, persecution both emotionally and professionally by the mayor of the Corporation, a member of your municipal group. When she reported him, she found herself involved in a media case where she suffered a public trial by taking an influential and very popular politician to court for the first time for sexual and workplace harassment.
The solvent director Iciar Bollain transfers these real events to images at the same time that those responsible for the film talk about the first case of what would later be called the #metoo movement in the US. The issue of sexual violence is an issue that worries Bollaín if we take into account that he already addressed it, in 2003, in I give you my eyes. As in that one, he knows how to describe, with the right pulse, what the subjugation of one human being by another entails, objectifying him as if he were his property. The images we see on the screen are impressive because here political power was used to intimidate not only an inexperienced young woman but also her entire family environment and, what is more serious, the complicit silence and lack of solidarity that Nevenka found in her parliamentary group, fearful of losing the perks associated with the position of being councilors of the City Council.
Bollaín is a good director of actors, hence a story supported by the verisimilitude of the interpretations was essential, in this respect they are fantastic and convincing in their roles Mireia Oriol and Urko Olazabal. The first providing the necessary records about a woman who went through the various states derived from a critical situation of harassment such as anxiety, fear and nervousness. As for Urko, he is super credible playing an arrogant man convinced that he was immovable in power and that he had no limits in his performance. An everyday “monster” with the skin of a popular politician but very fraudulent in his tasks.
The film is based on the book by Juan José Millas: “There is something that is not as they tell me.”
