The Catalan Film Academy will study the public complaint for sexual harassment filed by director and photographer Silvia Grav against director and entity member Eduard Cortés.
The Academy announced this Wednesday that, in accordance with its internal protocol, it will activate its so-called Boarding Commission to deal with the complaint against Cortés, director of popular series like “Merlí” or more recently “Ni una más”, regarding the complaint of sexual assault by a 17-year-old girl in a high school.
Via, first on his Instagram account and later on the social network
In her profiles on the networks, Grav assures that the filmmaker, whose conversations she follows, promised to help her professionally, being very insistent, even if she never met him.
Born in 1959, Eduard Cortés began his career as a director of television series in 1991, with famous titles in Catalonia such as “Oh, Europe! and “Sitges”, although he reached the general public with “Merlí”, which was seen in countries around the world.
This year he was one of the directors of the Netflix mini-series “Ni una más”. In 2003, he was nominated for Best New Director at the Goya Awards for the film “Nobody’s Life”. Other films he has directed are “The Clown and the Führer”, “Ingrid” and “Cerca de tu casa”.
Silvia Grav on her Instagram account said she was “1000% sure” she was not the only one. “Four years of continuous sexual advances are a trend and not an isolated case,” and he pointed out that Cortés deleted the Facebook account from which he made these propositions, “probably seeing them coming.”
After reminding his subscribers that the profile used by the director was “Gato del Cerro”, he asked if anyone had experienced a similar situation, to let him know.
Through X, she revealed that in less than three days, 15 other women came forward as victims of Cortés and shared their stories with her. Now they are organizing to “decide together what is the best way to report this”, even though they have already declared that their intention is to report the facts together. “The truth is that we cannot do it,” adds Silvia Grav.
Given these events, the Catalan Cinema Academy will activate the internship commission provided for in these cases to “determine the measures to be taken,” the entity indicated. Likewise, it has made its specialized care team available to victims of abuse in the audiovisual sector, in a “strictly confidential” manner.
Since May 2022, the Academy has had a care and prevention service for victims of harassment or abuse in the audiovisual or performing arts sector, a pioneering initiative in Europe, born from the controversy sparked by cases detected. at the Barcelona Theater Institute and L’Aula de Teatre de Lleida, among other training centers.
In addition, since last June, it has had a guide protocol for the prevention and treatment of sexist and LGTBI-phobic violence in the audiovisual sector. The protocol establishes that filming must have a reference person against harassment and gender-based violence, as well as an intimacy coordinator for scenes with sexual content, among other points.
