The abuse of power and sexual harassment of Nevenka Fernández reach the cinema with Icíar Bollaín

Nevenka had, and has, a last name: Fernández.

“But, look, she was never mentioned.

By leaving her alone in Nevenka, she was objectified, reduced to a mere feminine object, to something without soul... And furthermore, that name sounded like a foreigner, like someone who had come from outside to disturb a city," reflects the actor Urko. Olazabal.

The winner of the Goya for best supporting film for

Maixabel

tells it in a small office in a classic building in Bilbao.

A few minutes later, the director Icíar Bollaín, sitting in the same place, will reinforce that speech: “The story of Nevenka Fernández and the mayor of Ponferrada, Ismael Álvarez, was told at the time, in 2000, from the media with very Little sympathy for her.

She was a creep, a girl without knowledge, who hooked up with the mayor... Come on, she was pointed out as the culprit.

It is fascinating how far that story was from reality.”

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And Nevenka Fernández took the floor

They both know what they are talking about, and in a few sentences they have summarized the spirit that two decades ago took over Ponferrada, the capital of the Bierzo region of Leon, and part of Spain, when Nevenka Fernández, councilor of the Treasury, denounced her mayor, Ismael Álvarez, for sexual harassment.

That tough battle to be heard and to receive judicial reparation for their suffering became the great scandal of the beginning of the 21st century, an accurate thermometer of the machismo of Spanish society and, now, in a film, Soy

Nevenka,

directed by these days in Bilbao Icíar Bollaín with Mireia Oriol playing the economist and with Olazabal as the then leader of the local PP (a party to which the councilor also belonged) and businessman Ismael Álvarez.

Urko Olazabal, Icíar Bollaín and Mireia Oriol, on the filming of 'Soy Nevenka'david herranz

EL PAÍS is the first media outlet to enter the filming.

These weeks all the interiors will be filmed in Bilbao, and then the team will travel to Zamora, where they will film the street sequences.

The producers, Bollaín and some technicians have visited Ponferrada on several occasions.

“In the summer they had reserved a hotel for us, and when we arrived we discovered that it belonged to Álvarez.

So yes, it has our personal data,” reveals producer Koldo Zuazua.

Next to him, the other producer, Juan Moreno, smiles.

Both, together with Bollaín and the screenwriter Isa Campo, created a successful team with

Maixabel,

also based on real events: the murder of Juan María Jaúregui at the hands of ETA and the meetings that his widow, Maixabel Lasa, agreed to have years later. with her husband's executioners.

Now the team hopes to repeat the move artistically, and they have already done so technically: filming at the beginning of the year will allow them to arrive with the finished film at the fall festivals.

“The first thing was to create bridges of trust with Nevenka Fernández through Ana Pastor, producer of the 2021 Netflix documentary where the economist spoke for the first time, and Juan José Millás, author of the book

There is something that is not as they tell me.

the case of Nevenka Fernández against reality

.

We did it.

Filming in Ponferrada?

Well, from the city council itself, through the local press, they answered that question.”

At the beginning of 2024, after the administrative silence, the first deputy mayor, Iván Alonso, denied that "obstacles" had been placed on filming but explained that the mayor of the capital of Bercia, Marco Morala, did not see the use of some public spaces, such as the Town Hall or the castle.

In the building of the Maritime Captaincy of Bilbao - about to be converted into (another) luxury hotel - numerous interiors have been reproduced: in one room there is the councilor's office, on whose table there is even a ring calendar of The time;

In another, the office of the mayor of the Treasury, full of large filing cabinets with reports on shelves, stamped paper from the municipality among the office supplies and posters from the time about the Bierzo region and the beauty of its natural landscapes on the walls. .

In a lobby, a town hall office has been recreated, around the corner you can enter the Radio Bierzo studio with its microphones, its fish tank for the technician and the sound table... The director of photography Gris Jordana

( The Messiah)

moves almost flowing between the electrical equipment.

Bollaín, who is not one to raise his voice, does not even give the order for action.

Without fuss but with concentration, he rolls.

Nevenka Fernández, on March 26, 2001, when he resigned as mayor and in a press conference with his lawyer Adolfo Barreda announced the presentation of a criminal complaint against Ismael Álvarez.EFE

For Bollaín, this film is a natural step after

Maixabel.

“Juan and Koldo offered Isa and me three possible themes, and without hesitation we chose the story of Nevenka Fernández.

I saw the documentary and I remembered and revisited many sensations, like the one that Millás highlights in his book that made many people look the other way: it was a PP thing, 'theirs'.

Today social perception has completely changed, and we witness events like this from another perspective.

But do you remember?

It was never the Ismael case, it was always called the Nevenka case.

Like what happened around Monica Lewinsky... why wasn't it called the Bill Clinton case?

Bollaín and Campo came up with a script in which the protagonist has constantly collaborated: “Think that she, at the beginning of the 21st century, with everything against her, returned to her town, to denounce whoever governed, and to take him to trial.

After many conversations with Nevenka, it is clear that she did not do it with a spirit like Augustine of Aragon, but for survival, to put things in her place.

She has always been integrated into this project, and she still seeks answers to why what happened happened.

“I think that people from outside of her revalidate her history is important for her.”

Bollaín confesses with a laugh that he believes that the economist did not know her films, "but Lucas [her boyfriend in 2000 and now her husband and father of her two children] did, who is a big movie buff."

In 2022 they lived in Spain for a year, and Campo, Fernández and Bollaín met there.

The meetings have continued in his current city of residence, Dublin, and he will get closer to filming.

“Now, after the documentary, she wants her drama to be useful, for something positive to emerge from something so horrible.”

Urko Olazabal, as the mayor of Ponferrada Ismael Álvarez, in 'Soy Nevenka'.David Herranz

Mireia Oriol

(The Art of Returning

and protagonist of the series

Alma)

bears an enormous resemblance to that woman who on March 26, 2001, in a hotel room, before a hubbub of journalists, said that she was resigning from her position as councilor. of the Treasury of Ponferrada, and the reason for his decision: the sexual harassment and humiliation received by the mayor.

“I am 26 years old and I have dignity,” she stressed that morning.

Then came the trial, the change of prosecutor, since the first carried out a controversial interrogation of the complainant, and the conviction in May 2002 of Ismael Álvarez by the Superior Court of Castilla y León with a minimum sentence, although for the first time A Spanish politician went to jail for sexual harassment.

That was his second ordeal;

The third was inflicted on him by Spanish society: not only did thousands of Ponferradinos demonstrate in favor of his former mayor, but Fernández did not find work in any company and moved to the United Kingdom.

The truth to tell the story

The first hell began months ago, when, with a recently completed master's degree in Auditing and at the age of 24, Nevenka Fernández was offered to be number three on the local lists of the PP in Ponferrada: she was leading the ballot, as was the city council and the city. , Ismael Álvarez, then 50 years old.

She agreed to return to her hometown, of about 60,000 inhabitants, from Madrid, where she lived.

After the June 1999 elections, she was appointed Treasury Councilor, and she had a brief affair with Álvarez.

Her refusal to continue the relationship led to harassment and the employer's annulment process.

“You are a son of a bitch and I am going to be a son of a bitch with you,” she told him, as was remembered in the documentary.

In September 2000, Fernández requested leave due to depression at the Ponferrada town hall, when she had already lost 10 kilos of weight, and she moved to Madrid to recover.

Quite an Everest for the Catalan interpreter Mireia Oriol, who chats with EL PAÍS shortly before hiding her smile and filming a brief talk with a Ponferradina official.

She almost shares the age of her character in 2000;

and she met the real Nevenka last November, when Fernández traveled to Madrid to collect an award granted by the Ministry of Equality for her resilience.

Very few noticed Oriol's presence in the auditorium, and that they took photos together at the end of the event.

She “looked at me and said: 'You have the truth to tell this.'

It's a challenge, because she has moved me deeply.

At the same time she underwent a great transformation and went through very different emotional states.

You have to constantly change the colors of the interpretation.”

Oriol confesses that by pure observation she has been “mimicking herself into the economist” even though Bollaín did not want her to imitate her.

Icíar Bollaín, Urko Olazabal and Mireia Oriol, on the filming of 'Soy Nevenka' in Bilbao.David Herranz

And Ismael Álvarez?

“He was a winner, and we cannot reduce him to an ogre, because he would look like cardboard,” explains the filmmaker.

“In Ponferrada we have spoken with many people, with municipal officials who worked with both, with builders and lawyers, and many say that he seduced both men and women.

Even today they remember him as a great mayor.

These witnesses also saw that young and brilliant economist from the auditor Arthur Andersen launch into that exhaustive work.

In those moments, Nevenka is dazzled by someone with the power and respect that surrounded Ismael in his city, who presents himself as a family friend to a woman who respects parental figures.

To that we must add that feminine scourge that is born from wanting to please, and that's the cocktail.”

Bollaín emphasizes: "He thought that with the excellence of his work he would be saved, because until the last second he continued with his work, without realizing that it did not matter, that nothing would stop the harassment and demolition."

Olazabal insists on that human side of his character.

“He had it all because of the hegemony of his party and his figure in the region.

When you close your hand, something does escape.

And the woman he wants to possess does not want to be possessed.

The conflict is born.”

The actor, who although he participated in

Maixabel

playing the ETA member Luis Carrasco, has achieved this role after several tests, believes that "simplifying Álvarez is at the same time minimizing Nevenka Fernández, who was a super-valid woman."

And he points out: “I think she also suffered from the fact that as long as he messes with her, he won't mess with me.

And at the same time, her worth generated envy, and in Ismael the rejection increased his teeth.

As a basis, he has taken “the documentary for his face and voice;

his book,

Written remains,

to apprehend his praxis, and other works on sexual harassment to assimilate how the perpetrator approaches his victims.

Ismael Álvarez, in 2001, after the complaint by Nevenka Fernández.EFE

Has anything changed in Spain in these two decades?

Oriol believes so “although there are internalized notes of sexist culture.”

The producers and Olazabal point out their doubts about a profound transformation.

The filmmaker jumps out, emphatically: “Yes, the social response, and that makes me happy.

However, behind closed doors there will continue to be cases.

Harassment continues as an annulment of the person and abuse of power.

At least, I know that young women communicate, they inform each other, because in Nevenka's time, she herself told us, there was 'the prison of silence'.

And that silence that the victim suffers is extrapolated to society.”

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