A look at the consequences of 1-O

Roda de BeràThe Tarragona-based filmmaker Anna M. Bofarull premiered on June 11 at the International Catalan Film Festival (FIC-CAT) in Roda de Berà her latest film, Rebel, a documentary with the 1-O referendum as a backdrop and starring Marta Torrecillas. Torrecillas was one of those attacked by the Spanish police, and images of her being dragged by officers down the stairs of the Pau Claris institute in Barcelona went viral, along with her claim that her fingers on one hand had been broken one by one.

“I met Marta through my phone on October 1, 2017, while I was at a polling station, and everything she was going through deeply moved me. I then followed her experience on social media, and it made me very indignant. I saw she was a young woman caught at a bad time, who had reacted and everything was being magnified,” recalls Bofarull, who explains that she later met her and proposed the documentary to tell her story. Rebel has been an eight-year project.

“The project has changed a lot. At that time, I had the idea of filming Marta at the mobilizations she attended, of explaining what she had experienced. But it was as a result of what she suffered emotionally that the documentary gradually adapted. I decided to accompany her to show the consequences for someone who has suffered such significant public exposure,” points out the Tarragona director, who admits to feeling powerless: “For me, her position and her story were very clear, but I realized that, by talking about it and showing it, not everyone saw it as clearly as I did. And from here comes the reflection on what happens when the one who rebels is a woman and all that she suffers. There was all this sexualizing violence. If she had been a man, she would have been attacked in a different way”.

Bofarull highlights that Marta's body channeled all this suffering into something as feminine as having difficulties becoming a mother. “I had the debate of whether to expose her or not, of approaching it from a place of sorority. And also exposing myself. What she told me helped me understand her situation, and I felt that this needed a voice to incorporate it into the debate,” says the filmmaker, who decided to lend her voice to the documentary. She also maintains that she wanted Marta not to be a victim but a strong, fighter, and rebellious woman, who “had the guts to confront the system and expose herself”.

Premiere and new projectRebel will premiere in cinemas on October 2nd and Televisió de Catalunya, which has participated in its production, will broadcast it in the program Sense ficció coinciding with the tenth anniversary of October 1st. Bofarull is already working on his next fiction film: “It’s a historical film, a walking road movie through the Pyrenees of two trementinaires, women who used to sell medicinal herbs from town to town”.