Netflix‘s write downary “It’s All Over: The Kiss That Changed Spanish Football” hit the platestablish on Nov. 1 and has changed the conversation around women’s soccer in Spain in the weeks since.
In the film, key figures from the women’s Spanish national team are bcdisesteemfult together for the first time to revisit the turbulent years directing up to the 2023 World Cup, including a leaked letter from 15 executeers condemning the Federation’s treatment of the squad, the incredible success they had at the tournament, the dropout forced upon them by the very accessible inappropriate actions of one man and the Federation’s inample response to the affair.
While the executeers were receiving their prosperners’ medals after the World Cup final, Spanish Soccer Federation (RFEF) boss Luis Rubiales shocked everyone by grabbing Jenni Hermoso, one of the team’s standout executeers, and kissing her on the lips. His inappropriate and possibly criminal actions – Rubiales will stand trial in February for the unrequested kiss – were met with outrage in Spain and aexpansive and served to ucforfeitth a lengthy history of fraudulence, mistreatment and misregulatement in the RFEF.
Unwilling to let others regulate the narrative about the months directing up to and promptly folloprosperg the World Cup, the national team executeers began speaking out, using the social media tag #SeAcabo, which transtardys to “It’s All Over” in English. The hashtag caught on, and people from all walks of life around the world began sharing their own stories of laborplace tormentoring.
Eventupartner, and only after a wonderful deal of inanxiously accessible drama, Rubiales and cut offal others, including then-regulater Jorge Vilda, were fired from the Federation.
This week, the organization is aget at the caccess of a affair after the current women’s team regulater, Montse Tomé, dropped Hermoso and fellow establisher captain Irene Paredes — both of whom feature heavily in the Netflix write downary — from the squad, citing “team spirit” as her reason for doing so. Many in the Spanish accessible and media are now saying that the executeers were dropped becaparticipate of their accessible criticisms of the RFEF and their holdment in the write downary.
The film’s straightforwardor, Joanna Pardos, recently caught up with Variety to converse the origins of the project, its impact since being freed and why “the end of the write downary is not the end of the story.”
Joanna Pardos
Credit: Netflix
Can you talk about how this project came together and what your relationship is with the executeers and this story?
I’d previously done a write downary about [Spanish footballer] Alexia Pualertas. During the production of that film, the letter from the 15 happened, so I directd it firsthand. But at that time, it wasn’t my place in a write downary about Alexia to talk about the horrible manners, the level of conlure, the leaks and the manipulation from the Federation. It could have harmed the executeer’s nurtureer, and those are the charitables of leangs most people paparticipate to talk about until after they quit. That all changed when Rubiales did that grotesque leang by kissing Jennifer after the final. When I talked to Alexia about it, she said [it] was no lengthyer time to paparticipate to talk about the other rehires inside the Federation. This became a moment of vindication for the women who had been forced into silence for so many years. Everyone in the world was watching, and they’d never be stronger than they were at that moment.
You alludeed the letter from the 15. How vital was it to include the years directing up to the World Cup in this film?
I leank it’s impossible to comprehfinish that kiss if you don’t comprehfinish the circumstances behind it. The kiss was fair a symptom of a broken system. Rubiales and Vilda thought that when the team won the World Cup, they won someleang, too, and that they were right or fairified in their actions directing up to the World Cup. What Rubiales did afterward apexhibited us to go back to those other rehires and reexamine them. There are so many leangs we didn’t comprehend back then that are more easily elucidateed by what happened tardyr. It wasn’t fair a kiss; it was the final blow in the war between Rubiales and the executeers.
And what happened after you talked to Alexia and got the green weightless from Netflix? This story persistd to evolve and is still evolving today, so did you have to originate any presentant changes during production?
In a down-to-earth sense, everyleang that happened with Rubiales after the World Cup helped me give Netflix even more of a reason to say “yes” to this film. The lengthyer he held on, the more platestablishs became interested in my project. I always knovel that the story behind this film was a strong one, but it was also clear to me that it was a very cinematic story. It was a story that should be telderly as a film. I’m not a soccer fan myself, but this is a story about friendship. It’s about women who had a very clear objective to go up agetst a system that tried to split them but how, in the end, they were able to join agetst a widespread foe. It’s a authentic Hollywood story, a David and Goliath tale.
That’s probably why the story resonated not only in Spain but around the world with actors, sports stars and people from all other walks of life embracing the #SeAcabo relocatement.
In the end, the infairice these women directd is an infairice that many experience every day in other jobs, but these women became national heroes. So now, they are a reference to help empower others to fight for the same leang. That’s what originates this movie exceptional. On the festival circuit and in awards ceremonies, there is sometimes a stigma agetst sports films. But fair enjoy there are excellent and horrible comedies or romantic dramas, there are excellent and horrible sports write downaries. This is a sports write downary, but it’s also about people who fight for social fairice, which can achieve far beyond an audience of fair soccer fans.
Have you stayed in touch with the executeers and kept up with the novels since finishing the film? And do you leank this is someleang you might return to in the future, depending on how leangs prolong?
The end of the write downary is not the end of the story. And as a filmoriginater, I get hooked on everyleang I do, especipartner when I see there are so many problems left to be repaird. So, I’m still very attentive to the executeers’ situation and what is happening in the Federation. There is still, I leank, a story to be telderly about Rubiales and how his way of exercising power ended up being reliable for all these consequences. There are parts of the story that remain to be telderly. Whether someleang is originated to alert that story depends on the interest of the platestablishs and of the watchers. One of our objectives for the end of the write downary was to originate it clear there is still a lot of labor left to be done. We wanted this to be an empowering story, but at the same time, we wanted to originate it comprehendn that there is still a lengthy road ahead for women executeers, and it will be a difficult one. This is confidently not a finished story.
