Alicia G. Arribas |
Madrid (EFE) they will be the Goya, and they were the Feroz awards or, this weekend, the Carmen.
Afterwards, once the police have been notified, the victim is asked if they want to file a complaint or not, as confirmed by EFE after reviewing the methods followed at film festivals and events in recent years.
They are very simple procedures that are adopted not only as indications but as protection measures for both guests and workers. To fulfill its mission, a protocol must include principles and commitments and have clear methods of action. The last step is the immediate -and unequivocal- condemnation before public opinion of what happened.
The Film Academy claims to have “always had internal tools, from the emergency protocol to occupational health risks”, which prevent any situation. “When you prepare an event in this category, you have to take everything into account,” says a spokesman before the Goya gala, which is held in Seville next Saturday.
This is the case in many event organizations, which choose to apply their own methods. On occasions (in the Feroz and in the Carmen, for example) two people – a man and a woman – were designated with a contact telephone number during the gala and party that any member of the organization knew. They are the experts and they are present, they are the referents of the safe space.
Zinegoak pioneer in applying security protocols
The first festival to apply a security protocol in Spain was Zinegoak (an international LGBTIQ+ film festival that has been held in Bilbao since 2004), and it did so in 2020 driven by a problem that arose “and we didn’t know how to act,” one acknowledges. of the members of the Zinegoak management team, who regretted in statements to EFE “for not having acted immediately.”
«The protocols work as traps for predators; if you trap their territory, they will abandon it. And they work just like that, as a preventive measure to turn all places, both work and entertainment, into safe spaces,” Carlos Loureda, co-director and programmer of Zinegoak and editor of the first protocol, told EFE.
In some municipalities in Spain (not all), there is a general protocol against aggression; This is how the ‘purple points’, or the ‘ask for Ángela’ (assistance in nightclubs and bars) were born. They are tools popularized after #MeToo, such as the commitments against sexual abuse in the film industry environment that, already in 2018, were adopted by several festivals, such as Sundance, Cannes or Berlin.
Now, the law of “only yes is yes” establishes that any non-consensual action of a sexual nature is an assault and therefore a crime. This change has been fundamental in the complaint at the party after the Feroz gala in Zaragoza.
But a protocol is only good if it improves every day. Thus, the most recent include actions not only against sexual assaults, but against harassment of any kind based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and beyond: by class, origin, race, level of studies in multiple and varied scenarios. .
Ensure respect and protection
But the most important thing is to guarantee the respect and protection of all the people affected and the confidentiality -so that the integrity of the people is preserved-, as well as to do it diligently and quickly, because the effects are minor if the response is timely.
It is also necessary to guarantee impartiality, so that everyone must be treated in terms of non-discrimination -those investigated and those who are not-, restore the situation of the person attacked and expressly prohibit retaliation.
And, above all, avoid the repeated and unnecessary public exposure of the victim, including their identity.
It was at this point that the Feroz failed, acknowledges María Guerra, president of the Association of Cinematographic Informants of Spain (AICE), organizer of the awards, who greatly regrets the “clumsiness” of having made public the name of actress Jedet, complainant for the harassment of producer Javier Pérez Santana at the party after the Zaragoza gala.
“We have been watching Jedet, supporting her as much as possible and we have reflected a lot, but above all, we have learned,” Guerra told EFE.
That said, the journalist asks that these protocols be established in «Eurovision, in companies, in families; In short, the world of cinema should not be demonized, because it does not only happen in our area ».
Jedet herself, the protagonist of the series “Veneno”, has thanked the support on her social networks and has hoped that her experience “will encourage many people to denounce it.”
