The San Sebastián festival defends the screening of Jordi Évole’s documentary that interviews Josu Ternera, after a letter from 500 people asking for its withdrawal

Image from the documentary ‘Don’t call me Veal’

The San Sebastián festival has responded, defending the screening of the documentary Don’t Call Me Ternera, co-directed by Jordi Évole and Màruis Sánchez, to the letter published this morning by El Diario Vasco, signed by 514 signatures and entitled Against the whitening of ETA and Josu Ternera, against the premiere on Friday the 22nd at the Zinemaldia of this Netflix production, which will inaugurate the Made in Spain section, and which according to the contest is “an exclusive interview with one of the key figures in the organization of ETA: Josu Urrutikoetxea , better known as Josu Ternera. Led by Jordi Évole, the documentary offers an unprecedented look from within the terrorist group and addresses some of the decisive moments until its dissolution in 2018. A tense and exhaustive conversation that has allowed a victim of the conflict to resolve unknowns about the attack that suffered almost 50 years ago.”

More information

According to the letter, signed by the philosopher Fernando Savater, the professors Carlos Martínez Gorriarán and Carlos Fernández de Casadevante, the writers Félix de Azúa, Andrés Trapiello and Fernando Aramburu, the journalists Miguel Ángel Idígoras and Santiago González, victims of terrorism like Ana Iribar, Mari Mar Blanco, Rubén Múgica, Cristina Cuesta, Ana Velasco and Maite Pagazaurtundua, as well as people linked to politics such as Carmelo Barrio, Rosa Díez and Carlos García Adanero, “Zinemaldia is much more than a great showcase for the film industry. It constitutes a true and influential school of what is valuable or not in current cinematography, which is to say in the most popular culture, promoting people, ideas and ways of seeing and living (…). For this reason, the eventual selection of a documentary-interview with the head of ETA José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, alias Josu Ternera, by journalist Jordi Évole and produced by Netflix Spain, could not be considered irrelevant.”

And he continues: “Unfortunately, this documentary is part of the whitewashing process of ETA and the tragic terrorist history in our country, converted into a justifying and trivializing story that puts murderers and accomplices, victims and resisters on the same level. We reject the claim that Josu Ternera had motives to order dozens of crimes against humanity, including the murder of children for the crime of being children of civil guards. We deny that such reasons should be exposed and applauded in a cultural event of the highest level (…). Doing so is whitewashing terrorism and trivializing very serious crimes.”

And he concludes: “We know that the San Sebastián Film Festival does not share in any way the motives or goals of Josu Ternera or the ETA gang, which rejects the whitewashing of terrorism by active or passive nature, which adheres to the principles and Defense of human rights. In this confidence, we ask Zinemaldia to completely exclude this documentary and any other similar one that they may produce in the future from their programming.” At no time do they clarify whether any of the signatories have seen the documentary.

José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, ‘Josu Ternera’ raises his fist at a political event in Sodupe (Bizcaia), on May 6, 2001.EFE

In conversation with EL PAÍS, José Luis Rebordinos, director of the festival, appreciates that the signatories remember that the festival “does not share the goals of Ternera or ETA”, and reaffirms: “I have seen the film and it is terrible that we have to be like this all the time. On numerous occasions in public I have already said, and I repeat, that ETA is a fascist and murderous gang. Obviously, if I thought the film whitewashed ETA, I wouldn’t show it.” And he argues: ”It is a very interesting film for many reasons. And that starts with a victim and ends with a victim. There is a declaration of principles in which the first and last word is given to a victim. At Zinemaldia everyone will be able to see it normally. Then a large part of the balloon will deflate, as always happens. Don’t Call Me Beef has to be seen first and subjected to criticism later, and not the other way around. In this sense, we would be willing to hold a private screening prior to a small group on their behalf.”

The director of the contest does not value the film opening a cycle, in his case Made in Spain: “No, five months ago it was not even on our radar. Jordi Évole called me if I wanted to see it, we saw it and included it. She comes to us in the same way as others. It is very interesting sometimes to listen to the perpetrator of violence, because it provides information about him. I was very touched by the film S21: The Red Killing Machine, by Rithy Panh (a 2003 documentary by the Cambodian director who was later nominated for an Oscar with The Lost Image), which interviews Khmer Rouge torturers and murderers. And they massacred Panh’s entire family, and with her I understood what can lead human beings to commit monstrous acts. We did not humanize Josu Ternera, he is already human, no one humanizes him more or less. Now, he committed monstrous crimes for which he has to answer to justice.”

The director of the festival, José Luis Rebordinos, at the announcement in Madrid in summer of the Spanish films at the 71st edition of Zinemaldia.Sergio Ordúñez (EFE)

In a statement that the festival published this afternoon, and which was written in the first person and signed Rebordinos, it is recalled: “The cases of Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1988), S21: the red killing machine (Rithy Panh) are well known , 2003) or The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, 2012). We reflected on all this in a book and a cycle in 2016 under the title The Act of Killing. Cinema and global violence: 32 films were programmed there, which were often a weapon of denunciation, a means for analysis or a form of direct intervention in many tragic problems.” And Rebordinos reminds this newspaper that the festival usually programs films about violence in the Basque Country: “Without going any further, last year, with Gesto, what happens when citizens face violence? about the Gesture for Peace movement. And he elaborates: “We have a very complicated history of violence. Once ETA is over, it is easier to make films about different points of view, which is what interests me. It is easy to say that ETA did monstrous things, which is true, and that it ends there. Why not, because history must be analyzed, listened to and learned so that it does not repeat itself. Because if not, look at Chile, where 50% of Chileans now support, half a century after it happened, Pinochet’s coup d’état. I will never be with the torturer, I will always be with the victim. However, the processes are not simple.”

Screening at a publicly funded venue

The writer Andrés Trapiello, one of the signatories of the letter, wants to clarify several points: “The San Sebastián festival rejected Iñaki Arteta’s documentary Under the Silence, about the victims of terrorism, two years ago. And one is related to the other. I think Josu Ternera cannot have a showcase in a place paid for by all of us. Pedagogy is done if you can hear the voices from all sides. As long as Ternera does not make a tour of forgiveness to the victims, he does not have the right to speak in a contest that is public. He can speak wherever he wants, but not there. “That’s a red line.”

The author further explains: “I would like that in a place where ‘No to war’ stickers have been put up, attendees would also put on black ribbons against ETA. And that the world of cinema was the one to talk about the contradiction of this projection. We live in a hypocritical society where we are scandalized because they remove an animated film, a fact that is also condemnable, and not because of the announcement of this screening. There are many anomalies together. I insist, he is a terrorist who is going to launder himself in a place paid for with public money. And I wish the cinema, with Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz or Javier Bardem, who sign other manifestos, would also sign this one. What’s more, that they led it.” Is deprogramming such a documentary also disregarding the cinema of Rithy Panh or Claude Lanzmann? “The thing is that they, or Évole himself, can interview whoever they want, and they have every right. I am not asking that they ban it, or that they not put it on Netflix. The problem is in defending the public place, in defending ourselves from sectarians, and from perpetrators. And Josu Ternera is.”

The festival depends on a board made up of the Basque Government, the Donostia City Council, the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council and the Ministry of Culture. “Some of its members have already seen it, others, who have not been able to due to scheduling reasons, will do so in the coming days,” explains Rebordinos, who insists: “Why are we so afraid of the word? Those who will see the film are adults with the capacity to think, there is no need to protect what Veal says. And I’m not the one to tell people what to think. “I am concerned about those who believe they have the right to tell the rest of the population what they should see and what they should not.”

All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.

Subscribe

Babelia

The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter

RECEIVE IT
#San #Sebastián #festival #defends #screening #Jordi #Évoles #documentary #interviews #Josu #Ternera #letter #people #withdrawal