The documentary in which journalist Jordi Évole interviews former ETA leader Josu Ternera, which will premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival, has generated loud opposition even days before its broadcast. So much so that numerous intellectuals, politicians, former politicians and victims of terrorism have signed a manifesto in which they ask the management of the event to “exclude” this screening from its agenda for “whitewashing terrorism and trivializing very serious crimes” for which the ETA leader, “still a fugitive from justice , faces a tax request of 2,354 years in prison.
Specifically, 500 citizens – “the vast majority Basque,” says the text – have signed this complaint in the last few hours, which was devised by former activists of the Basta Ya platform in San Sebastián. At the forefront are prominent names from the political, cultural and intellectual scene, key in the fight against terrorism in recent decades: Rosa Díez, Fernando Aramburu, Fernando Savater, Andrés Trapiello, Maite Pagazaurtundúa, Carlos MartínezGorriarán, Carlos García Adanero, Marimar Blanco, Félix de Azúa or Rubén Múgica, among others. They demand that the festival – which takes place between September 22 and 30 – not broadcast the documentary.
The film, titled Don't Call Me Ternera, has been produced by Netflix Spain and will have its world premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival.. «It is essential that the film serves on a pedagogical level for that entire generation that has decided to forget or not look towards that place in our history that is very recent.. “It is an exercise in historical memory,” declared Évole and Màrius Sánchez, co-directors of the documentary.
Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, professor at the University of the Basque Country, co-founder of UPyD and signatory of the manifesto, regrets the “showcase” represented by the broadcast of the documentary about Josu Ternera. Doing so, he reflects in conversation with this newspaper, is putting out “a red carpet” for the former leader of ETA who delves into “the constant attempt at normalization” of the terrorist group with the help of public organizations.. “There is a double standard, it is intolerable,” he considers.
“It represents the triumph of ETA's totalitarianism,” considers the writer and EL MUNDO columnist Andrés Trapiello, who has also adhered to the manifesto and denounces the “hypocrisy” and of Spanish cinema, which a few weeks ago criticized the withdrawal of films in some municipalities governed by the right but do not comment on a documentary that “whitewashes the murderers”. The manifesto serves, he explains, to “portray” the management of a festival that sees no problem, he says, in the screening of an interview with one of the big bosses of ETA while ignoring in 2020 the documentary by director Iñaki Arteta in which showed the trace of terrorism in the Basque Country.
The San Sebastián Film Festival responded yesterday to the manifesto, denying that it was going to exclude its broadcast and defending that the documentary “neither justifies nor whitewashes ETA because this Festival would not screen a film with those premises,” at the same time that it urged the signatories to view the film before judging it: “It must be seen first and subjected to criticism later and not the other way around.”