Eduard Cortés, director of series such as Merli and Not one morehas been accused by 27 women of “sexual harassment” in an investigation published by The Country. Most of them were between twenty and thirty years old, and two were minors when the events supposedly occurred. Among the alleged victims are the photographer Silvia Grav, the visual artist Eva Fàbregas and the actresses Sofía Barco, Norah Alexandra Vega and Nicole León, who have indicated that the director benefited from his position in the sector to offer them work on the condition that “they recorded themselves naked, masturbating or engaging in other types of sexual practices,” between mid-2007 and October of this year.
The filmmaker contacted them through Fotolog, Facebook, MySpace, Messenger and Instagram. The accusations began on October 26, after Silvia Grav shared on Instagram some messages that she had exchanged with him, in which she accused him of grooming (online sexual harassment and abuse) when she was 19 years old. Her publication generated dozens of other women to join her testimony from their own accounts. There were more than 50 who contacted the photographer. 38 those who created a WhatsApp group called Not one more.
The director spoke with El País and assured: “The conversations on social networks occurred within the hypothetical, looking for connections between the character’s way of acting and our personal experience. They were never explicit proposals.”
None of the women then reported the acts allegedly committed by Cortés to the police, although, according to the media, “at least” 15 of those it interviewed “have taken the first steps to report what happened: they have received legal advice from a law firm and have collected evidence in the last month.”
The Catalan Film Academy reacted last October to Silvia Grav’s publication. This institution explains to this newspaper that it opened “a sanctioning procedure” against Eduard Cortés and had “constituted an expert commission made up of a jurist and a psychologist specialized in sexual violence,” following what is stated in its internal regulations. However, after the filmmaker requested his leave “for personal reasons” on November 25, and this was admitted; They informed him that “this file has been suspended and that it will be reopened if he requests discharge again.”
The work of the Academy Unit and the Ministry of Culture
Several of the women went to the newly created Unit for prevention and care against violence in the audiovisual sector, promoted by the Film Academy and the Ministry of Culture. “Some wanted to organize a class action lawsuit, which has different characteristics than an individual lawsuit. They were asked to give guidance on what it entailed,” they tell this newspaper from the Academy, which informed the Aspacia Foundation, in charge of managing this service, of what happened.
“They called them back to refer them to an expert lawyer, but they never received a response,” they say. In any case, they clarify that their contribution would have been to “advise them on what a class action lawsuit entails. If what the victims expected is to be assigned a lawyer to file a class action lawsuit free of charge, this is not in the definition of the Unit.”
The Academy insists that what they offer is “a guidance service.” The economic cost they assume is that of the “psychologists and lawyers who provide the first care.” They recognize that legal support in a lawsuit “is very expensive, they are very long processes,” but that their work is not and has never been that. And, at the moment, it is not contemplated to expand it. “It means giving a response, having a place you can call. That there is a group of expert people who listen to you, providing psychological advice, so that there is no added blame. “They can tell you if something is reportable or not, in what way and what it entails,” they describe.
Beyond what happened with Eduard Cortés, the Academy defends that, since it was launched, they have received “the feedback from many women who have called and for whom it has been useful. Being listened to and advised is already a reparation.” Hence they maintain that “the objective with which it was born is being fulfilled.” “Maybe it needs to be explained better,” they acknowledge about the doubts that may have been generated around their scope of action. Nor is it among its bases to open sanctioning files: “Our institution does not investigate, not even if it had been an academic, as is not the case with Eduard Cortés. We offer care.”
Although for the moment the Unit is aimed at victims, they say they are working on a framework protocol “to serve as a reference” for all production companies and other companies in the audiovisual sector that want to incorporate it into their structures. “It will be a recommendation guide to know what to do if a case of harassment is reported within your company,” they describe. As they point out, the plan is to launch it in early January 2025.
Advice from CIMA
Another of the women with whom El País has contacted, who prefers to remain anonymous because she was 16 years old, was in contact with the director between 2014 and 2018. “Her way of trying to manipulate me was to tell me that the photos that I uploaded to Fotolog were very good, then he would go on to make sexual comments to me,” he declares. She went to the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media (CIMA) to report her case, and describes the response she received as “disappointing”: an email in which they informed her of the ways to request help and report.
From the Association they explain to elDiario.es that “CIMA sends a message directing the victims so that they know where they can find help, since CIMA does not have a technical or psychological team for this.” Afterwards, “the association is responsible for discreetly following the case and putting pressure on the institutions or academies to verify that this woman is being cared for.” “CIMA does not ignore it, but the work it does is very discreet, always thinking about protecting the victims,” they say.
Both CIMA and the Film Academy Unit and the Ministry of Culture, and the Catalan Film Academy insist on reminding the victims that they can count on their support and advice. A confidential service in any case, which means that they cannot give exact figures of the calls they have received, and within which specific audiovisual sectors they fall.
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