In the hours before the premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival of the documentary Don’t Call Me Ternera, a Netflix production directed by Jordi Évole and Màrius Sánchez, the Berria newspaper has published an interview with the film’s protagonist, José Antonio Urrutikoetxea , alias Josu Ternera. The former top leader of ETA is critical of the documentary and points out that he participated in it with the aim of “offering explanations to Spanish society” and highlighting the “political origin of the conflict.”
The interview was conducted in the Basque-French town of Ziburu, just 10 kilometers from the border, and, in it, Urrutikoetxea points out that he saw “a few weeks ago” the documentary that premieres today at the San Sebastian festival.
“For me, the political thread is missing. I think it lacks context, and what is explained is my opinion on some facts, some harsh actions. I took a risk and it’s not the result I expected, but I won’t interfere with his work. They have done what they think; I have a different vision and a different idea about that work, but I say it with all due respect,” he points out in Berria.
Urrutikoetxea dedicates part of the interview to explaining why he participated in the documentary: “What I wanted to say is that we have to go to the origin, and the origin is a political conflict.”
“It has been a political conflict, with all its hard, raw and irreversible consequences. I wanted to show it to the Spanish public. Let them not think, in some way, that someone felt pleasure in those events. They were political actions with political objectives. I wanted to show that. When we enter into this dynamic in such a violent and hard struggle, empathy is lost on both sides,” he says.
Throughout the interview he also points out that, in an unpremeditated manner, he confessed during the filming of his participation in 1976 in the murder of Víctor Legorburu, mayor of Galdakao, a crime that had not been directly attributed to him and that was dismissed by the Amnesty Law of 1977. “There were many hours of recording, and I don’t remember exactly how the topic came up,” the interview states.
This same week, the general secretary of Sortu, Arkaitz Rodriguez, criticized the documentary, which he considered “excessively partial” for being “exclusively focused on ETA’s violence”, in a way that feeds “a certain unique story.”
These positions contrast with the criticism expressed, before seeing the film, by a group of 514 citizens, among whom were people from the world of culture and victims of ETA, who requested the San Sebastián International Film Festival to withdraw the film from understand that it “whitewashes” terrorism.
This formal request that the film not be screened, channeled through a letter to the management of the San Sebastian festival, stated that “the documentary is part of the process of whitewashing ETA and the tragic terrorist history in our country.” At the same time, he denounced “a justifying and trivializing story that puts murderers and accomplices, victims and resisters on the same level.”
The signatories, however, had not seen the documentary when they signed the letter and their complaint was refuted by the director of Zinemaldia, José Luis Rebordinos. “As long as I direct the Festival, I will never whitewash terrorism and the murders of ETA,” he indicated.
Meanwhile, this Tuesday, some victims of terrorism were able to see the documentary in advance and expressed a very different opinion than that expressed in the letter requesting its withdrawal, signed by writers such as Fernando Savater, Félix de Azúa, Andrés Trapiello and Fernando Aramburu; or the victims of terrorism Ana Iribar, Mari Mar Blanco, Rubén Múgica, Cristina Cuesta, Ana Velasco and Maite Pagazaurtundua, among others.
This is the case of victims of terrorism such as Iñaki García Arrizabalaga, professor at the University of Deusto and son of Juan Manuel García Cordero, kidnapped and murdered by the Autonomous Anticapitalist Commandos, or Josu Elespe, son of the socialist councilor murdered by ETA Froilán Elespe.
Both agreed that the film “does not whitewash ETA” and highlighted that the work exposes Urrutikoetxea.
