The irrelevant impact of MeToo and the Weinstein Case in Spanish cinema

• Sabine Prokhoris "Me Too works like a political religion, any reservation is perceived as blasphemy"

• Emma Cline "There is something of all of us in Harvey Weinstein"

• Rebecca Solnit "We live in a world where men are predators and women are prey"

It seems like a century ago, but only five years have passed: on October 5, 2017,

published the first article denouncing Harvey Weinstein for sexual harassment and for having sealed

.

It was signed by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, played by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan in

, a film directed by the German María Schrader and based on the book

(Books of the KO), where the same journalists detail her investigation.

The film begins with those

, investigated by Twohey, which culminated in the Republican victory in the 2016 elections. A bitter prelude that did not allow us to foresee that journalists were going to "change the world", so to speak. , hitting the send button, in the last plane of the film.

Throughout its more than 360 pages, the book is much more exhaustive and goes up to the moment in which Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, in June 2020. A week before the premiere of Exposed in Our country, the one that was a producer of Tarantino, was sentenced again, to another 18 years, for another rape and two assaults.

Before Twohey and Kantor hit the send button, Weinstein, now in his 70s,

.

This is how Andrés Vicente Gómez, one of our most veteran producers, recalls it: «I already had a very low opinion of Weinstein, because he was very despotic and inconsiderate with the authors.

I signed with him to distribute

in the United States, but

and Carlos Saura, who had contracted the final cut, refused.

We were about to go to court, and in the end he made us drop the agreement we had from $300,000.

Then, in 1993, it was taken very badly that

took the Oscar when hers, which was

, was considered the winner.

He fired his press officer and told her that he had to kill me ».

Vicente Gómez was not surprised by the scandal: «

.

I had no knowledge of the abuse.

Although every year he had a party in Cannes, supposedly for charity, to which he used to bring Sharon Stone and in which he was seen drooling a lot with the actresses, "adds the producer.

Drooling, in fact, is a verb that very well summarizes a series of attitudes that, without actually crossing the slippery red lines of what can be considered a crime of sexual abuse or harassment, persists in our day to day.

In the open, a film dominated by its immense didactic will, goes so far as to treat us with a graphic example of drooling: the journalists are gathered in a bar and the classic flirt, directly from the mid-20th century, breaks into the conversation.

The gentleman says something like: "Hey, my friend, who is in the back, I wanted to say hello!"

The exchange escalates in tone, until the journalist blurts out the inevitable word that begins with F in English. Any man knows drool firsthand but, as is well known, error is the basis of pedagogy and life is a continuous learning.

"There is a lot of slimy who doesn't realize it and who even calls himself a feminist," María Zamora reminds us of our natural desire to improve ourselves day after day in good and bad.

The producer of Carla Simón's films, among many others, adds: «Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the red line that separates drooling from what can already be considered a crime.

I think there is a lot of misinformation, although there are excellent initiatives such as that of the Catalan Film Academy, which has opened a support department in which they give legal advice.

When we say that the

"changed the world," we mean, above all, that of American cinema in particular.

Less than a week later, Ronan Farrow had already published another article in the

accusing Weinstein of rape;

the

, created years ago by the activist Tarana Burke, went viral in those days;

Time's up emerged and scandals and

followed , all particular cases that we are reluctant to group into a simple list.

Laws were changed: in the State of California, for example, economic agreements such as those signed by Weinstein were prohibited.

, morality clauses in contracts arose and privacy coordinators appeared on the sets.

More than just symbolically, some women took the place of men who had been forced to resign for inappropriate conduct.

It happened in the offices of Disney, Amazon and Warner.

The so-called "culture of abuse" would be the opposite of the fight against sexual discrimination.

But,

There have been famous cases in the world of politics, opera and theater.

But in our cinema, although many actresses have complained of abusive behavior, no one has given names.

"Maybe the rapists are in another sector, like journalism," Vicente Gómez jokes.

«I have been in the profession for 60 years, and I have never seen anything strange, here most of the relationships are consensual.

I can't imagine the more mature actresses, like Carmen Maura or Concha Velasco, denouncing

.

Young girls, fortunately, have been trained in other environments.

Before it was not frowned upon to court and compliment.

Now all that has been greatly nuanced and it is good that it is so », he concludes.

For María Zamora, who has been in the profession for 20 years, “the problem is that the people I have known have been victims of totally inappropriate behavior have preferred not to say anything.

I think that if they don't speak, it's because those who abuse are usually older men who have amassed a certain amount of power by insisting, while the victims are usually much younger and risk a lot.

There is an episode of the Self-

series that talks about all this.

Indeed, episode eight of the

series , entitled

, is a disturbing portrait of the omertá that would prevail in our cinema.

Berta Prieto and Belén Barenys, the

who star in the series, are offered

and end up breaking the fourth wall to ask the public: "Who can afford to publicly denounce abuse?"

"What surprised me most about the Weinstein case was not so much the case itself, which I think was an open secret, but that the cascade effect did not reach Spain

," Zamora concludes.

«If it had occurred, some would dare to speak and others would be more careful.

People look the other way too much.

Things have happened in France, but here, in the field of cinema, nothing.

It is clear that in Spain we have lacked a Weinstein case.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• cinema

• actresses

• Disney

• Amazon

• Harvey Weinstein

• donald trump