Writers: Icíar Bollaín and Isa Campo
Director: IcÍar Bollaín
Like another Spanish film playing at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, I Am Nevenka is based on a true story, a scandal that rocked the country. Marco: The Invented Truth examined the lies of a man who falsely claimed that he’d been a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps. Despite focussing completely on the man himself, the film was cooly objective. Some of that film’s detachment is needed in Icíar Bollaín’s story of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Nevenka Fernández Garcia is surprised when she’s asked to become a councillor in the Spanish city of Ponferrada and even more surprised to find herself quickly promoted to lead the finance department of Mayor Ismael Álvarez’s City Council. She’s already been warned about Álvarez’s womanising reputation, but she initially believes that his special interest in her comes from good intentions.
Set in 2001, years before the #MeToo movement, Álvarez and other politicians comment on Nevenka’s looks. With no recourse to stop such harassment, she has little choice but to endure their inappropriate observations. But Álvarez persists, and his romantic come-ons eventually are met with success. The couple enters into a clandestine relationship.
However, it’s when Nevenka, realising the affair is not proper or professional, ends the relationship that Álvarez more obviously exerts his power over her. He calls her phone constantly, expects her to be available 24/7 and publicly humiliates her in front of her colleagues and the opposition party. He won’t give up the pursuit.
Much of the film charts Nevenka’s harassment, clearly showing the toll it has on her mental health, but very little of the film shows her fight for justice in the courtroom. Bollaín says that she didn’t want to make a courtroom drama – there are plenty of those to be had already – but the ending of the film is a little confused, fudged almost, as we see Nevenka thrown to the lions by her male lawyer. It’s right that we should see how she was victimised by her employer, but there is no sense of Nevenka’s resilience in bringing about the first conviction of a politician in Spanish history. The actual court case was more full of drama than the film discloses.
Mireia Oriol is excellent as the young councillor desperate to retain her dignity, and Urko Olazabal is reminiscent of a gravelly Robert De Niro in his portrayal of the powerful and odious Álvarez. However, Lucía Veiga, in the minor role of the leader of the opposition party, shines most brightly.
I Am Nevenka is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2024.
