Iciar Bollain on Focusing Sexual Harassment Drama ‘I Am Nevenka’ on the Victim and Using Sounds of an Old Nokia Phone to Chilling Effect
Spanish director and actress Icíar Bollaín’s I Am Nevenka (Soy Nevenka), which premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival that runs through Saturday, tells the story of Nevenka Fernández (portrayed by Mireia Oriol), the first Spanish woman to obtain a sexual harassment conviction of a politician.
The case that made Spanish headlines in 2001, long before #MeToo, focused on Ismael álvarez (played in the movie by Urko Olazabal), the popular and powerful mayor of Ponferrada who brought the young Fernández into his team as councilor of finance.
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Soon, she ends up being “relentlessly hounded by the mayor, a man used to getting his way both politically and personally,” notes a synopsis on the San Sebastian festival’s website. “Nevenka decides to report him, knowing that it will cost her dearly. A story based on true events turning its lead character into a forerunner of the #metoo movement due to being the first person to take an influential politician to court for sexual and labor harassment.”
Importantly, the director tells the story from the perspective of the victim who ends up facing the politician’s broad sphere of influence, along with continuous calls, text messages and notes that range from angry, insulting, begging and complementing to disparaging.
Bollaín talked to THR about how she approached the story to show the perspective of harassment victims, using the horror-inducing sound of an old Nokia cell phone, why she couldn’t shoot the movie in the town where everything happened and what the #MeToo movement has accomplished.
I experienced your film as a very emotional ride that made me feel worried, scared, upset, and more, sometimes at the same time. You also show Nevenka’s inner struggle and journey through noticeable changes in how she looks — from a professional-looking young woman ready to take on big responsibility to a frail, scared person who doesn’t want to leave her house. And you use lighting to further underline the change. How key was it for you to add these visual elements to the nuanced work of the actors?
There is an amazing job from the actors working through all that journey. There is also the work of the make-up artist, the hairdresser, the wardrobe [team] that shows changes like deteriorating hair, little by little. [Mireia Oriol] is a skinny woman. Still, we tried to conceal that skinniness until the moment in which we actually see her [at the height of her struggles]. And yes, there is also work with the light, as you said. So everybody was trying, with their different tasks, to help the actress go through that process of deterioration, and then come out again.
There are some scenes that reminded me a bit of a horror movie. At the beginning, for example, you hear an old cell phone ringing. That phone’s ringing and text message alerts are a recurring sound in the film that sounds more and more like a warning of a lurking monster. Did the whole movie come together more or less as planned or were there any scenes or elements that surprised you on set?
When you shoot, you’re trying to find all those moments and hope it works. And then the first time I saw the film, I thought, “well, it does work.” You feel for Nevenka. I think [Mireia] is amazing. And you do fear this man, which is also great.
But there were all sorts of discoveries along the way. For example, the sound of the phone wasn’t that present in the story [originally]. But then suddenly we thought, well, this is an element: the sound of the Nokia phone becomes like a nightmare. So we did have some discoveries in the editing process for how to underline this psychological terror.
Sexual harassment has been in focus in recent years with #MeToo. This story you tell happened in Spain long before. How did you want to show audiences new layers and emotional insight?
There’s been lots of talk about #MeToo. Thank God we have come to know about all those cases. But I’m surprised. There are not that many films that go into how it feels to be in a harassment situation. There is the wonderful film She Said (directed by Maria Schrader and written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on the 2019 book of the same title by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about their investigation into Harvey Weinstein), but it’s about the journalists that investigated the story.
I thought there was very little that is focused on the victims, and, of course, never on the actual situations. So I thought I should try and show how it feels to be there and try to communicate that fear, that terror, that not knowing what this guy is going to do. There is that confusion she gets into. I think it’s hard to understand how you get paralyzed by a process of harassment, how it is constantly leading you into a state of confusion, into a state of paralyzation. So, I thought it was worthwhile to go for that. Especially because this case was in the media, and there was a court case that lasted two weeks. There was a moment in which we thought, “Well, should we go through that spectacle of that?” But then we thought, no, let’s tell it in a way that it still hasn’t been told because it’s not that common.
The film includes scenes of people in the town saying, “Oh, the poor mayor. This woman – it’s her fault.” And that looks like old TV footage. Was that archival footage or did you just make it look that way?
Yes, there are these kinds of video clips and footage that was part of the amazing story of this woman, and she confronted a very hostile reaction from the media and from Spanish society which at that moment was very hostile. So we wanted to introduce that because it’s part of the story. So we have two types of images: we used the real footage of those people in the streets, and then others are with some are our actors, like when she enters her press conference or he does his press conference. Those are our actors, but the rest of it, including the news hosts, is [archival] footage.
This was a small town of 60,000 people, and he was a very heavy personality — he was loved because he was a mayor who changed the situation in the city. He opened and modernized the city, so he had lots of followers. But also what he did was he sent a letter, 60,000 letters, into every mailbox. He had an army putting in people’s mailboxes a letter that was six pages long, explaining his side [of the story].
How do you feel about the state of society and safeguards against harassment? Do you see any improvement?
I think there is an improvement in how society perceives victims. I think the reaction towards victims now is different, in Spain it definitely is. We are now seeing this horrific case in France of this woman [Gisèle Pelicot] who was raped 100 times by 50 men organized by her husband — it’s mind-blowing. And the reaction of the audience now is very clear: it is very much with her. I think the #MeToo movement broke the silence and, at last, there is sympathy towards the victims.
But there are still all these stories coming out, one more horrific than the next. So I think it is still a big, big issue, and it’s costing lives. It’s costing the lives of many, many women all over the world. In some countries, it absolutely goes even beyond that, it’s just state violence against women, like in Afghanistan. So I think it’s a big issue that still needs lots and lots of work, but at least to me, there is not this hostile answer, socially, to the victims. We have changed in that we understand what consent means, what harassment means.
How much input did you get from the real Nevenka on the movie?
We thought from the beginning that we needed to have her on board. I didn’t want to do this story without her acknowledgment and permission and participation. So my co-writer [Isa Campo Villar] and I met her in a very early stage, and we’ve been in constant exchange with her. We had lots of talks with her. We went researching and talking with the people who surrounded her — the lawyer, psychoanalyst, her husband, friends. We talked to everybody, including people in the town, and then we went back to her. So it was a constant conversation.
She’s just seen the film recently. And she says she’s very much on board. I mean the script was our script and our ideas and our artistic approach, but she was always very generous, giving us feedback about the story.
I like the title and the scene in the film where she tells her abuser not to call her by nicknames and his pet name for her, because “I am Nevenka.” Please tell me a bit about the importance of that in her empowerment.
Her nickname at home is Quenka, it’s just her family’s way of calling her. The thing is: he is her boss, and the man just holds that name and then even transforms it into Quenki, Quenkina. It’s like “little Quenka,” diminishing her more and more. So there is her claim: I’m not that little girl anymore.
Did you ever hear from the real Ismael during production?
We tried to shoot in the actual town. And the thing is: he’s still a man with power. He is still a big shot there. He still has his restaurants and his clubs and these things. And the local government is very close to him. So when we asked for permission to shoot there, there was silence. It wasn’t a “no,” it wasn’t a “yes,” it was just silence. So as the weeks went on, we said, “Okay, we’ll have to find another place.” We understood what the silence meant.
But films oftentimes are not shot where they are set and happen, and it’s not a big deal. I would have liked to make it there because it’s a very specific place, and it has a castle, which is amazing, and it happened there. But in the end, we shot nearby in a different town.
I was not previously aware of this case. What would you like audiences in Spain and beyond to take away from seeing your film?
I think it’s a film that talks to you in many ways. I want the public to feel what it means to be inside the nightmare of harassment. But also, I think that, as a woman, you recognize things before the most extreme moments of harassment but you want to please. Why on Earth do we have this culture of pleasing constantly?! And I think men also can recognize things, maybe not to the extreme of Ismael, but before getting to that extreme. I think there are things that we can recognize easily. We can recognize when there is a bully and nobody says a thing. I think that’s something that is going to echo with the public.
So I guess it can make you uncomfortable and it can make you think. This case happened 20 years ago. Where are we now? It’s a good mirror in which to look at ourselves and say, “Well, obviously we are more empathic with the victims, but how much have we changed? How much have these behaviors have already changed?” So I think it’s a dialog with the public.
What are you working on next?
I want to work with, I hope, my partner, Paul Laverty, the screenwriter [The Old Oak] and longtime collaborator of Ken Loach. He has written a story to shoot in Scotland. It’s about serious things but in a lighter tone, something he really masters. It is a kind of comedy, but drama. It is fiction that is not based on a true story or a true character. It’s called What’s Wrong With Charlie? But we still don’t have a green light, so it’s too early to talk about it more.
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