Carlos Vermut, director of films such as Diamond Flash or Magical Girl, has been accused by three women – all of them belonging to the film and culture industry – of “sexual violence” in an investigation published by the newspaper El País. Some events dating from 2014 to 2022 of which at least 17 people were aware, according to the investigation: but which the filmmaker has already denied, ensuring that he has “always practiced rough sex in a consensual manner.”
The scandal over the reported sexual assaults has reopened the issue of abuse of power in the world of cinema, full of cases of harassment of this type. As a result of the scandal involving Vermut, a viral monologue by Julián López at the Feroz Awards held in Bilbao in 2018 has once again gone viral.
At that moment, when the movement
López wondered: “We are the best kept secret in Spanish cinema. That and the name of our sexual harassers.” A question that did not provoke an outcry from the audience, but rather timid applause. However, the comic actor claimed to know why: “In Spain we copy what happens in the United States 10 years late,” he claimed.
“It’s like that. Here the producers are still buying the baton. I’m not saying all of them. Some are still buying the box office. Just kidding. I’m not being serious.” A speech that may have provoked a questionable reaction at the time among the audience, but without a doubt is most valid more than five years later.
The three victims who have reported Carlos Vermut agree that none of them expressed their consent to maintain relationships and that they did not report at the time for fear of losing their jobs. The first recalls violent attacks by the filmmaker. The second was an aspiring director; and the third, she worked for him and had promised him, according to her version, a better job.
The latest work by Vermut, 43 years old, is titled Manticore. A story about a pedophile man tormented by his desires.
Last year, the Feroz Awards party was marred by another scandal of alleged sexual assaults at the party after the gala, held in Zaragoza. Javier Pérez Santana, producer of the film My Empty and I, was brought to justice for having allegedly touched the actress Jedet, who reported him for sexual assault, and was released the next day.
Not only the actress, but Bob Pop, Marc Ferrer and the actress Itziar Ituño also joined the complaints of harassment by the producer. “Perhaps before we were not so aware that this must be stopped and radically cut,” said Ituño.
