This week on Palomitas, we’re turning the lens inward – not on Spain's economic crisis or infrastructure, but on a crisis of the body, justice, and belief. We’re diving into Bàrbara Mestanza and Marc Pujolar’s extraordinary 2026 documentary, Sucia (Filthy) –a six-year, no-budget, shot-on-whatever-camera-was-available chronicle of one woman’s refusal to remain quiet.

After she was sexually assaulted during a massage in Madrid in 2015, Mestanza decides to confront what happened not just in court, but on stage, in a novel, and finally on camera. The film explicitly addresses the question that haunts survivors – ¿Por qué no hiciste nada? (“Why didn’t you do anything?”) – and turns those assumptions on their head.

Winner of the Audience Award and a Special Jury Mention at Festival de Málaga, Grand Jury Prize at Sheffield DocFest, Sucia is a triptych of theatre, literature, and film: an internal conversation with her brain during the assault; the self-destruction afterward; and the judicial process that follows. It’s a film about performance and believability, about the male gaze and the courtroom gaze, and about what happens when a “non-archetypal victim” (in the film's own words) refuses to perform silence.

We’re joined by Professor Duncan Wheeler, Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds, President-Elect of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, and 2023 Tecmerin Medal recipient. Together we discuss Spain’s #MeToo reckoning, the 2016 La Manada case, the 2022 ley del solo sí es sí, Gisèle Pelicot’s demand that shame change sides, and the brutal statistics that end the film: there are 400,000 victims of sexual violence each year; only 5% report; and just 9.7% obtain convictions. Is art repair, exposure, or both? And what does Sucia demand of male viewers?

Selected scholarship cited in this episode:

– Maria Delgado, ed. 2026. Spanish Verbatim Theatre: Putting Justice on Trial (Aberystwyth: Performance Research Books).
– Duncan Wheeler, 2020. Following Franco: Spanish Culture and Politics in Transition (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

Until next time on Palomitas!