Neither the Oscars, nor the Goya, nor the Golden Globes… The best gala of the year, the most agile and funniest, was the one held last night at the Luchana Theaters in Madrid, where the Spanish Screenwriters Union (ALMA) delivered their annual awards. The honor award was received by 22 professionals in recognition of their judicial victory against Mediapro after four years. All of them were writers for programs such as El intermedio, 90 minuti, Zapeando and Las que faltanas.
The union’s board of directors wanted to recognize the “commitment” of some professionals who, “despite the obstacles and risks, have provided a solid judicial precedent for more scriptwriters to claim their extra pay, which some producers try to hide by inventing supposed interpretative doubts ” .
They themselves offered the headline when they went out to collect the award: “We are the scriptwriters who defeated the boss”, in reference to The Good Patron, a film starring Javier Bardem that defended workers against the abuses of some businessmen. Fernando León de Aranoa himself was awarded by ALMA in 2022 as writer of this feature film.
One of the juiciest moments of the gala was the appearance on stage of Javier Méndez, Mediapro content director, who collected the award given to the authors of the film Official Competition. Méndez, who came representing Gastón Duprat, Andrés Duprat and Mariano Cohn, reacted well to what could have been interpreted as a trap.
The presenters themselves and those responsible for the text of the gala, Yaiza Nuevo and Javi Valera, scriptwriters for El intermedio, among other programs, made various jokes about their relationship with Jaume Roures’ production company, which they also shared with a large number of attendees.
Álvaro Velasco, one of the award-winning scriptwriters, assures that the reason for the dispute was the different interpretations of the collective agreement, signed in 2017. In his opinion, the text is clear, but the production company understood it differently: “The wording of the agreement says that there are 14 payments, but from the beginning they decided to give us 12 payments and we said that it was not correct”.
If so much time has passed, the writer believes, it is “because justice allows many resources.” “This is like a football game; until the 90th minute they are wasting resources, which has also coincided with a few years in which money is worth less and less. I understand that in labor lawsuits, the more time companies win, the more people can Get off the boat”.
The merit of the 22 plaintiffs was to remain united and not be afraid. “It never gave to me, because we were so many people, and many of El intermedio, very successful, that we felt more secure. If we had only been three or four, we would not have gotten as far or it would have been more scary.” In any case, they never felt threatened by the company, which they do blame for taking the process so long. The time that has elapsed has led several workers to change programs and companies, although many others continue in their positions.
Mediapro, for its part, declined to comment on the matter. For Velasco, the most important thing is that these practices “fortunately happen less and less thanks to lawsuits like this, which set a precedent for what can happen if things are not done right.” “I think the situation is much better now than in 2017. I come from the world of journalism and there is no collective agreement there.”
The ALMA 2023 awards, on the other hand, also went to the script teams of the films As bestas and the aforementioned Official Competition; the series La ruta, Amar es para siempre and I don’t like driving; the programs Cachitos de hierro y cromo and Saber y ganar, as well as the documentary film A las mujeres de España. Maria Lejarraga.
And as one of the winners said: “We have already talked about Mediapro. If you want, we can start talking about TVE.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
