The Catalan Film Academy opens a department against sexual abuse after accounting for 150 cases

The sexual abuse scandals that have shaken the world of performing arts in Catalonia in the last two years have led the Catalan Film Academy to present an unprecedented project in Spain and a pioneer in Europe: a specific department against abuse intended to accompany legally and psychologically to the victims.

An

has been created to collect data and analyze case by case, and in six months a

will be presented in accordance with current legislation that will include a code of good practices.

The new department was created with a budget of

and the support of the Barcelona City Council and Provincial Council.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," acknowledges the president of the academy,

, who confesses to being very concerned about the number of cases in the profession, some 150 recorded in public and private institutions, and the

of complaints filed with the Justice, less than 10%, which is a rate well below the average.

The lawyer

, a specialist in the defense of victims of sexist violence, and the psychologist

are part of a team that will work completely independently of the Catalan Film Academy to safeguard the

of the victims who come to ask for support or tip.

"We do not want to know who reports or who has been a victim, our goal is to guarantee the strictest

," Colell explained.

"The figure of 10% is alarming, where are all those people who do not report or do not speak to anyone about what has happened to them? We are facing a

," she says.

"Today is a historic day," says the actress and member of the academy board

, one of the promoters of the new department that has only one precedent, that of the British BAFTA.

Molins was one of those who participated in the "listening groups" that were spontaneously generated between actors and actresses of different generations after the complaints came to light.

In them, Molins, verified the

of many victims who ended up doomed to "anxiety" and cases of very old interpreters in which the abuse had prescribed, but the pain was still "stagnant".

"I saw people who had abandoned their profession, even some who had put

.

The message we want to get across is that there is nothing to hide and that impunity must end," the actress stresses. "All complaints will be accepted, even if they have prescribed, because in Spain sexual abuse prescribes very soon."

All professionals residing or working in Catalonia may request help from the department and will receive a response within a maximum of

.

Whether they report or do not want to, the victims will receive support, regardless of when the events occurred.

"

", recalls the psychologist Aina Troncoso.

"I hope they copy us", encourages Carla Vall, "the time of the abusers is running out, faster and faster. What we present today fills a very important gap. The victims will not have to sacrifice their personal well-being to achieve their dreams" , denounces this lawyer, for whom cases of abuse within the sector are "a

, a knot that must be undone".

"Everyone knows what's going on, and everyone shares that secret, but secrets have to end. Fear has to change sides."

The reasons why it is more difficult for cases of abuse in the cinema and theater to come to light are several: to the precariousness and instability of the sector, we must add that the world of cinema and the performing arts are small circles, in which everyone knows.

The

of losing your job is high, and as Vall explains, studies show that when the harasser is a face known to the general public, that familiarity makes it much more difficult to accept that they may have done something wrong.

"It is a

in which there are many minors learning the profession. We do not want becoming an actress to be an obstacle course jumping from abuse to abuse," explains Molins.

"We all know what has happened to the victims and the abusers. We have all continued to have coffees, meetings and drinks, as if nothing had happened," she adds.

"Above all, we want it not to happen again," says Colell, who highlights how the figure of the

on film sets has been normalized in recent years, whose mission is to create a safe space in delicate situations such as sex scenes. or with nudes.

Two

related to minors, that of the

de Barcelona and in the

de Lleida, have shaken the world of performing arts and audiovisual in recent years.

Last March, the Barcelona Public Prosecutor closed the open investigation of a dozen teachers from the Institut Català delTeatre for possible indications of sexual harassment, abusive conduct or abuse of power to students, arguing that the facts had prescribed and that although one of the teachers had attitudes and behaviors "of a sexualized type" with respect to the students, the reported behaviors did not involve "the intervention of criminal law".

In the case of Lleida, more than 20 students denounced in 2018 two teachers from the Aula de Teatre, one of them the director of the center, for continued sexual abuse between 2001 and 2008, when the victims were

.

The case ended up filed and an investigation by the newspaper

revealed that the behavior of the former director lasted for years, until he left his post in 2019.

is shooting a documentary about the complaints that will be titled

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• Barcelona

• lleida

• actresses

• Europe

• theater

• cinema