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‘Maixabel’ Director Iciar Bollaín Unpacks ‘I’m Nevenka,’ About a Landmark Sexual Harassment Case in Spain
‘Sexual harassment has its patterns,’ says Bollain, director of San Sebastián main Competition player, ‘I’m Nevenka.'
“I went to bed in one of the [hotel room] and he lay down beside me,” Nevenka Fernández, a former member of Ponferrada Municipal Council, recounts how she was raped in 2000 by her boss, Ismael Álvarez, then the all-powerful major of the city. Álvarez delivers a masterclass in emotional manipulation, from belittlement – he addresses her with the childish “Quenca” – to accusing her of immaturity, of losing it, to threats, to a sudden begging for forgiveness, to sexual abuse. Bollaín doesn’t want audiences just to follow the abuse but feel its physical and emotional collateral, fore-fronting a scene at the very beginning of the film when Nevenka (Mireia Oriol, “Alma”) abandons her job, fleeing dressed as a medieval handmaiden at a Ponferrada Templars Night procession, to her still wringing her hands several days later when she first meets her lawyer in Madrid.
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