The 71st edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which starts on September 22, was expected to be more or less calm after a few years weathering controversies: the Donostia award for Johnny Depp, the screening of the film Sparta about a pedophile directed by Ulrich Seidl, who was accused of exploiting child actors by violating Romanian labor regulations, ... But it seems that Zinemaldia is pursued by controversy and in 2023 it has already been involved in another one for programming the Netflix documentary Don't Call Me Ternera, in which journalist Jordi Évole conducts an extensive interview with former ETA leader José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, alias Josu Ternera.
The film, co-directed by Évole and Màrius Sánchez, is part of the Made in Spain section and can be seen in the opening session from the 22nd until Sunday the 24th in various venues. The debate began to take place on the 11th, when 514 citizens, including Mari Mar Blanco, Ana Iríbar, Maite Pagazaurtundua, Rosa Díez, Fernando Savater or Fernando Aramburu, personalities from the university, culture, politics and the media , as well as victims of the terrorist group ETA, signed a letter published in El Diario Vasco in which they asked the contest directed by José Luis Rebordinos to "completely exclude the documentary" considering that it "whitewashes" terrorism.
"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," reads the writing sent to Zinemaldia, who claims to be aware that the San Sebastián Festival "does not share in any way the motives or goals of Josu Ternera or ETA."
Rebordinos' response was immediate and he issued a statement defending the screening of Don't Call Me Veal, ensuring that none of the signatories of the letter have seen it and convinced that, once it is screened, the controversy will "deflate." .
"I have seen the film and it is terrible that we have to be like this all the time. I have already said about fifteen times in public that for me ETA is a fascist and murderous gang. I think it couldn't be clearer. Obviously, yes If I thought that the film whitewashed ETA, I would not screen it," said Rebordinos, who does not understand how the signatories can say that it whitewashes ETA and ask that it be removed from the festival's programming without knowing its content. That's why he offered them a private screening of the tape, a request that has not yet been answered. "I just don't understand it, honestly. It seems to me that it's a brutal lack of intellectual rigor." "Of course the film does not whitewash ETA, it is not a pro-ETA film, it does not support ETA at all, it has nothing illegal. It is a very interesting film for many reasons. It is a film that starts with a victim and ends with a victim, I think it is a statement of principles that the first and last word are given to a victim," he stressed.
Zinemaldia already pointed out in a statement that the film "provides a hard and unprecedented look" at Urrutikoetxea's career as a leader of ETA, addresses some of the decisive moments of the terrorist group and even "allows a victim to solve unknowns about the attack that suffered almost 50 years ago. And, in the documentary, Ternera assumes his intervention in the murder on February 9, 1976 of the mayor of Galdakao Víctor Legorburu, a crime for which he was never prosecuted and which was dismissed by the Amnesty Law of 1977. .
The film begins with an interview with former Galdakao municipal police officer Francisco Ruiz, who was shot when he tried to protect Legorburu. Évole shows Ruiz the "images in which Josu Ternera recognizes his involvement in the crime" and the former municipal police officer "comments on what those words suggest to him," notes the newspaper El Correo. Three members of ETA were prosecuted for Legorburu's murder, but never Urrutikoetxea.
The controversy is reminiscent of previous ones, although with less intensity, in which productions experienced, before being viewed, whitewashing ETA. This was the case of Fe de etarras (2017), by Borja Cobeaga, about which even the then Minister of the Interior, Juan Ignacio Zoido, spoke out, when it was a comedy that precisely ridiculed terrorists. More intense was the case of La pelota vasca (2003), by Julio Medem, which before its release was involved in a bitter controversy for its portrayal of the history of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups (GAL). ), the situation of ETA prisoners and the victims and threats of terrorism.
