Who was Elena Tejada, the infiltrator behind Carolina Yuste's Goya?
The film that won her the award is based on the true story of a National Police agent who lived with ETA in the 1990s.
This Saturday the actress Carolina Yuste took the Goya for best actress for The infiltrator, where she plays a National Police agent who infiltrated the circles of the Basque left during the 90s. The real name of the young woman who inspired the film is Elena Tejada and the film, which was also made into a film, the 'ex aequo' award for Best Film with an unprecedented tie with The 47, tells how Tejada lived with ETA and dismantled the Donosti commando, one of the most symbolic of the armed group. The award has not been free of controversy due to the film's treatment of the Basque conflict.
The film, directed by Arantxa Echevarría, focuses on the character of Aranzazu Berradre Marín (pseudonym of Elena Tejada), a young national policewoman from La Rioja who infiltrated ETA at the age of 22. Over the course of 8 years she managed to rise and ended up collaborating with the Donosti commando, where ETA members such as Jesús Mari Zabarte, known as 'the butcher of Mondragón' or Txapote, alias of Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, belonged.
The true story behind 'The Infiltrator'
Under the name of Aranzazu, Elena Tejada arrived in Donosti in 1992 and presented herself as a member of the Logroño Movement of Conscientious Objection. Little by little she entered the circles of the Basque left: she moved around the headquarters of Herri Batasuna in San Sebastian, made friends and even worked in a discotheque for a while. The details of the infiltration were explained in a report from the magazine Ardi Beltza published in 2000, when the existence, real name and face of the person who was posing as Aranzazu Berradre were revealed.
The undercover agent's operation consisted of the dismantling of the Donosti commando and the arrest of activists Sergio Polo and Kepa Etxebarria, with whom she lived in 1999. In fact, it was Berradre who drove them to the meeting where they were arrested on June 1. This commando is credited with kidnappings and murders such as those of Miguel Ángel Blanco, Fernando Múgica or Gregorio Ordóñez, as well as the death of more than 60 people between 1982 and 2001. The last time Elena Tejada was seen as Aranzazu Berradre in Donosti. From then on, she disappeared: according to the Ardi Beltza She was posted to Ceuta, Melilla, Pamplona and also to Barcelona. The agent thus became the first and only woman to infiltrate ETA.
Carolina Yuste and a controversial award
The Goyas that he has won The infiltrator have sparked a controversy on social networks about the treatment of police infiltration in social movements and the romanticization of espionage of Basque society. In fact, the film starring Carolina Yuste has received criticism accusing it of being a propagandist and of spreading a biased account of the Basque conflict.
"I don't think this film had a desire to repair or heal wounds, as it could be Maixabel"I think it's a product of entertainment and action," says Ander Zurimendi, a Basque journalist who lives in Catalonia and author of Pick up your things, a fictionalized report that narrates the personal experiences of five former ETA prisoners. In general, regarding the audiovisual representation that has been made of the Basque conflict, Zurimendi comments that the choice is always to represent ETA, on the one hand, and the police as a force of salvation, on the other, and that "in very few cases" we see products about state terrorism. The journalist gives as an example of these projects the film Lasa and Zabala, based on the first terrorist act carried out by the GAL.
About The infiltratorZurimendi comments that, although the director is from Bilbao, she lacks a holistic vision of the Basque conflict. However, she highlights that the film talks about the Basque left, a novelty that is not usually seen in this type of audiovisual product: "Violent expression is the most important part, but the narratives have not placed all the intrahistories of Basque politics."
Other parallels have been drawn with the cases of undercover police in Catalonia, especially following the recent publication of the documentary Infiltrated, released in 30 minutes last January, and the difference in the treatment given to cases like these. "The fact that the uncorking of the infiltrators coincides with the success of this film already reflects well that Catalan and Spanish society, although they are plural, have mainstreams "profoundly different: one considers that infiltration is good and makes a product praising it, and the other considers that it is bad and that it violates rights," says Zurimendi.
What is clear is that the film has not only brought the Basque conflict back into the audiovisual narrative, but has also stretched the thread of infiltration of the security forces into social movements at a time when it could not be more on the agenda.