The Catalan Film Academy has launched a commission to address the complaints against the filmmaker Eduard Cortés (Barcelona, 65 years old), a member of the institution, expressed in recent days on social networks by grooming (sexual harassment and abuse online) by various women related to the audiovisual industry “to determine the measures to take.” Furthermore, as two of these women have confirmed to EL PAÍS, they have been offered legal advice, through the lawyer Carla Vall, and psychological advice. It is the first time that this commission has been launched – made up of two members of the Academy and a third external person – and this morning it had not yet been decided on what date they would meet. EL PAÍS has tried to contact Cortés, unsuccessfully.
The accusations on social media began last weekend with an Instagram story published by Spanish photographer and director Silvia Grav (@silviagrav). “This man spent years making me grooming when I was 19 and he was 55 (I still have the conversations), promising to help me professionally and there he continues directing movies and series in Spain,” he writes about an image of the director at the Malaga festival. “I had some intuition and never met in person even though he insisted.” And he asked people to share with him if there was anyone who had gone through a similar situation.
Because, she pointed out, to be “1000% sure” that she is not the only one. “Four years of continuous sexual advances are a pattern, not an isolated case,” and he stressed that Cortés deleted the Facebook account from which he made these proposals, “probably seeing them coming.” In her X account, Grav said that in less than three days, 15 other women have said they were victims of Cortés and have shared their stories with her.
Now they are organizing, says in a thread and one of these women has confirmed to EL PAÍS, to “decide together what is the best way to report this”, although she has already stated that her intention is to report the facts together. “The truth is that we can’t cope,” he adds.
This Thursday, the newspaper We buy has published that it has testimonies from 25 victims of the Catalan filmmaker, all anonymous, women who have suffered abuse through the social networks Flickr, Facebook or Instagram, and whose cases range from the year 2000 to “a few weeks ago.”
Cortés just finished filming the series last week High Earth, produced by Secuoya Studios and Movistar Plus+, which adapts the novel of the same name by Javier Cercas, a thriller which begins with the murder of two important businessmen in Catalonia. A police officer with a hidden past will take charge of the crime investigation. The cast includes Miguel Bernardeau, Ivan Massagué, Marta Etura, Bea Segura, Goya Toledo, Pere Ponce and Pablo Derqui, among others.
Cortés’ previous project was another series, Not one more, produced by Netflix and starring a 17-year-old student whose life takes a turn when a sign that says “Beware: A rapist is hiding here” hangs on the school’s façade. Cortés has a long career behind him. After several television works, in 2002 he premiered Nobody’s life, with which he was nominated for the Goya for best new director, and which was inspired by the real case of the French businessman Jean-Claude Romand, who lied about his work life in Switzerland, a story from which the novel had previously emerged. The adversary, by Emmanuel Carrère, and the film The use of time, by Laurent Cantet. Subsequently, Cortés directed, among others, Other days will come (2005), for which he was nominated for the Goya for best original screenplay; Ingrid (2009); The Pelayos (2012), which narrated how the García Pelayo family broke the bank in Spanish casinos; either Close to your house (2016), a musical about evictions starring Sílvia Pérez Cruz, who also composed the songs (by Ai, ai, ai won the Goya in its category) and the soundtrack. In addition, Cortés has directed the three seasons of the TV3 series Merlin.