Netflix‘s documentary “It’s All Over: The Kiss That Modified Spanish Soccer” hit the platform on Nov. 1 and has modified the dialog round girls’s soccer in Spain within the weeks since.
Within the movie, key figures from the ladies’s Spanish nationwide group are introduced collectively for the primary time to revisit the turbulent years main as much as the 2023 World Cup, together with a leaked letter from 15 gamers condemning the Federation’s therapy of the squad, the unimaginable success they’d on the event, the fallout pressured upon them by the very public inappropriate actions of 1 man and the Federation’s insufficient response to the scandal.
Whereas the gamers had been receiving their winners’ medals after the World Cup remaining, Spanish Soccer Federation (RFEF) boss Luis Rubiales shocked everybody by grabbing Jenni Hermoso, one of many group’s standout gamers, and kissing her on the lips. His inappropriate and presumably legal actions – Rubiales will stand trial in February for the unsolicited kiss – had been met with outrage in Spain and overseas and served to unearth a protracted historical past of corruption, abuse and mismanagement within the RFEF.
Unwilling to let others management the narrative in regards to the months main as much as and instantly following the World Cup, the nationwide group gamers started talking out, utilizing the social media tag #SeAcabo, which interprets to “It’s All Over” in English. The hashtag caught on, and folks from all walks of life all over the world started sharing their very own tales of office harassment.
Ultimately, and solely after an excessive amount of extraordinarily public drama, Rubiales and several other others, together with then-manager Jorge Vilda, had been fired from the Federation.
This week, the group is once more on the middle of a scandal after the present girls’s group supervisor, Montse Tomé, dropped Hermoso and fellow former captain Irene Paredes — each of whom characteristic closely within the Netflix documentary — from the squad, citing “group spirit” as her cause for doing so. Many within the Spanish public and media are actually saying that the gamers had been dropped due to their public criticisms of the RFEF and their involvement within the documentary.
The movie’s director, Joanna Pardos, not too long ago caught up with Selection to debate the origins of the venture, its affect since being launched and why “the tip of the documentary shouldn’t be the tip of the story.”
Joanna Pardos
Credit score: Netflix
Are you able to speak about how this venture got here collectively and what your relationship is with the gamers and this story?
I’d beforehand achieved a documentary about [Spanish footballer] Alexia Putellas. Through the manufacturing of that movie, the letter from the 15 occurred, so I skilled it firsthand. However at the moment, it wasn’t my place in a documentary about Alexia to speak in regards to the dangerous manners, the extent of contempt, the leaks and the manipulation from the Federation. It may have harmed the participant’s profession, and people are the sorts of issues most individuals wait to speak about till after they retire. That every one modified when Rubiales did that grotesque factor by kissing Jennifer after the ultimate. After I talked to Alexia about it, she mentioned [it] was now not time to attend to speak in regards to the different points contained in the Federation. This turned a second of vindication for the ladies who had been pressured into silence for therefore a few years. Everybody on the earth was watching, they usually’d by no means be stronger than they had been at that second.
You talked about the letter from the 15. How necessary was it to incorporate the years main as much as the World Cup on this movie?
I feel it’s inconceivable to grasp that kiss when you don’t perceive the circumstances behind it. The kiss was only a symptom of a damaged system. Rubiales and Vilda thought that when the group received the World Cup, they received one thing, too, and that they had been proper or justified of their actions main as much as the World Cup. What Rubiales did afterward allowed us to return to these different points and reexamine them. There are such a lot of issues we didn’t know again then which can be extra simply defined by what occurred later. It wasn’t only a kiss; it was the ultimate blow within the battle between Rubiales and the gamers.
And what occurred after you talked to Alexia and received the inexperienced gentle from Netflix? This story continued to evolve and continues to be evolving in the present day, so did you must make any main modifications throughout manufacturing?
In a sensible sense, all the pieces that occurred with Rubiales after the World Cup helped me give Netflix much more of a cause to say “sure” to this movie. The longer he held on, the extra platforms turned concerned about my venture. I all the time knew that the story behind this movie was a robust one, nevertheless it was additionally clear to me that it was a really cinematic story. It was a narrative that must be informed as a movie. I’m not a soccer fan myself, however it is a story about friendship. It’s about girls who had a really clear goal to go up in opposition to a system that attempted to divide them however how, in the long run, they had been in a position to unite in opposition to a typical enemy. It’s an actual Hollywood story, a David and Goliath story.
That’s in all probability why the story resonated not solely in Spain however all over the world with actors, sports activities stars and folks from all different walks of life embracing the #SeAcabo motion.
In the long run, the injustice these girls skilled is an injustice that many expertise every single day in different jobs, however these girls turned nationwide heroes. So now, they’re a reference to assist empower others to struggle for a similar factor. That’s what makes this film particular. On the pageant circuit and in awards ceremonies, there may be generally a stigma in opposition to sports activities movies. However similar to there are good and dangerous comedies or romantic dramas, there are good and dangerous sports activities documentaries. It is a sports activities documentary, nevertheless it’s additionally about individuals who struggle for social justice, which might attain far past an viewers of simply soccer followers.
Have you ever stayed in contact with the gamers and stored up with the information since ending the movie? And do you suppose that is one thing you would possibly return to sooner or later, relying on how issues develop?
The tip of the documentary shouldn’t be the tip of the story. And as a filmmaker, I get hooked on all the pieces I do, particularly after I see there are such a lot of issues left to be solved. So, I’m nonetheless very attentive to the gamers’ scenario and what’s taking place within the Federation. There’s nonetheless, I feel, a narrative to be informed about Rubiales and the way his means of exercising energy ended up being accountable for all these penalties. There are components of the story that stay to be informed. Whether or not one thing is produced to inform that story is determined by the curiosity of the platforms and of the viewers. Certainly one of our targets for the tip of the documentary was to make it clear there may be nonetheless numerous work left to be achieved. We wished this to be an empowering story, however on the similar time, we wished to make it recognized that there’s nonetheless a protracted highway forward for ladies gamers, and it is going to be a troublesome one. That is definitely not a completed story.
