“To say that Spain is racist is unfair”

It is now available on Disney+ ‘Lucrecia: A hate crime‘, a documentary focused on the murder of Lucrecia Pérez in 1992, considered the first racist crime committed in Spain. David Cabrera and Garbiñe Armentia they direct the production, which investigates The death of the Dominican woman after being shot in the Four Roses nightclub in Madrid and in the subsequent investigation through unpublished archival material and testimonies.

A case that is totally “current” and fully up-to-date with “similar conflicts in 2024”the filmmakers lament in an interview given to Europa Press in which, without ignoring that there is still “a problem” with xenophobia and discrimination, they also warn that generalizing and saying that Spain is a racist country would be “unfair.”

“In 2021, the George Floyd case was sentenced in the United States. It is a case of enormous social impact, it generated an enormous social debate around racism and, then, we said ‘the starting point in Spain, the parallelism in Spain, would be the case of Lucrecia Pérez’“, says Cabrera, highlighting the “unprecedented social, political and legal impact” that this crime caused in Spain, but at the same time, the director considers that It was “overshadowed” by the major events that marked the year 92, such as the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Expo..

The release of ‘Lucrecia: A Hate Crime’ comes at a time of rise of the extreme right in Europe, which has been reflected in the results of the recent European elections. “It is going to be released at a time when it seems that we are experiencing the different layers that are in Lucrecia’s story in a similar way. We encounter similar conflicts in the year 2024,” points out Armentia.

“When we started working on the story two years ago and got in touch with Disney, we had the intuition that the potential of Lucrecia’s story was its enormous relevance. It was not a story that was stuck in the past. Thirty years later, it resonated with great relevance,” adds Cabrera.

“In the two years that have passed while we worked, this has been reaffirmed. In this last year, unfortunately, racial insults, hate crimes, and the political situation have been very prevalent on soccer fields in Spain…”adds the director, who considers that this political and social climate makes the documentary even more “relevant.”

FLEE FROM GENERALITIES BUT RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM

Despite the current situation, Armentia believes that “Saying that Spain is racist is unfair, it is another thing that there is part of society that is racist.“. Furthermore, the director suggests analyzing, beyond the global situation, “whether we are not being racist in more everyday situations where we may not be considering it; for example, how we are treating the people who work in our homes.” “I don’t think we can make a generic ruling, it wouldn’t be fair.“, Add.

“In Spain, perhaps, with Lucrecia’s crime we discovered that we are not strangers to the problem of racism. In other countries around us, this has been dealt with more normally for years. In Germany, Belgium or Holland, they do not miss the fact that racism is something present in society and they work actively to try to keep it under control,” argues Cabrera. “It is pertinent to ask the question because it is possible that a huge layer of Spanish society lives convinced that we are not a racist country and, to the extent that we do not recognize a problem, it is difficult for us to find solutions for it.“, tints.

Civil Guard officer Luis Merino Pérez and minors Javier Quílez Martínez, Felipe Carlos Martín Bravo and Víctor Flores Reviejo were convicted of the murder of Lucrecia Pérez, and one of the questions raised by the documentary is “what leads three 16-year-old boys to get involved in a crime like this,” explains Cabrera.I hope many young people can see the series and ask questions.. That youth is the social faction most exposed to radical ideas is normal, it is now and it was then. At that time there were bulletins like the far-right magazine ‘Go for them’, which was passed from hand to hand, and today there are social networks and other media with much more diffusion,” explains the director.

“What we intended was to give Lucrecia an identity.“, says Cabrera. “We are very proud that Lucrecia, this woman who 32 years ago was thrown out of the house where she worked, who took a bus to go to the Four Roses nightclub where she took refuge, that 30 years later those buses carry the image of Lucrecia, it seems to me that it closes a beautiful circle,” he says.

‘Lucrecia: a hate crime’ consists of four episodes and is available on Disney+ since June 27.