“I thank God he’s gay,” said José Mantero on the cover of Zero magazine in 2002, declaring his homosexuality. His revelation paralyzed a country for a few moments, as Colonel Sánchez Silva had done two years earlier. in a similar situation and who had to hang up his uniform some time later.
Documentary filmmaker Damian Ainstein was struck when he read Home Office data showing that attacks against the LGTBI community increased by 45% between 2013 and 2019. “The entry of the extreme right into institutions has permeated society more, and those who were silent until recently felt legitimized to shout and activate a message. “That has to be said, commented on and fought against,” he commented on the phone in mid-June. EL PAÍS updated this number in 2022: the percentage increased to almost 70%.
For this reason, Zero, the magazine that brought a country out of obscurity, is Ainstein’s new documentary, much more than the documentary mini-series celebrating the 25th anniversary of the creation of a cult publication for Spain. When the magazine was created in 1988, Franco’s Dangerousness and Social Rehabilitation Act was still in effect, although not applied. It was completely abolished in 1995. At that time, “the magazine’s interest in intervening in the political sphere helped achieve equal marriage in Spain,” defends its director. Until there was a law passed during the Zapatero government that placed the country at the forefront of social rights. The series compares the times when the magazine was shut down in 2009 with the economic crisis and the departure of a large part of the founding team “to compare how we were and how we are now,” he says.
One of the most iconic covers of the Movistar Plus+ magazine
The content, already available on demand in the Movistar Plus+ catalogue, tells in two episodes the story of a publication that went from being a benchmark for the LGTBI+ collective to a whole social phenomenon in Spain, promoting civil rights in ours Country.
Another thing that impressed both the documentary maker and Mario Suárez, former editor-in-chief of the magazine and producer of this project, is that for the second episode they called together a group of young people between the ages of 19 and 20 who belong to the LGTBIQ+ collective , some even as part of activism. They were asked about Pedro Zerolo, who died of cancer in 2015. In addition, although he was one of the main people responsible for the rights they all enjoy, almost nobody knew how to say that it was the name of a square in Chueca, and almost nobody knew about a magazine called Zero. “You have to remind them that we fought for it and took to the streets,” says Suárez. “In areas as controversial as sports, bullfighting or the church, coming out should continue to be news,” he says.
In the same line of reasoning, Ainstein continues: “It is important to remember the story of courageous people who did their best to build a more humanitarian and better country when we live in a time when some are depriving themselves of the rights they… The miniseries includes testimonies from Jesús Vázquez, Miquel Iceta, Boris Izaguirre, Anabel Alonso, Nacho Duato, Eduardo Casanova, Alaska, Gaspar Llamazares and former members of the magazine, among others.
Jesús Vázquez poses with his well-known cover during his intervention in the documentary mini-series.Movistar Plus+
Certainly among the most transformative was the cover released during Holy Week 2000 entitled “The Passion of Jesus”, in which Jesús Vázquez explained his homosexuality and spoke of the pain caused by the Arny witch hunt. For both Suárez and Ainstein, it marked a before and after in the magazine’s prominence across the country, despite the prominence of Mantero and Sánchez Silva. “The definitive leap of the magazine as a magazine that affects an entire country has a first and last name: Jesús Vázquez. He’s the one who gets the magazine from the hidden side of the kiosk to make it appear in the most attractive spot. He was a hidden media icon, the victim of an unfair case and who had just lost two great figures in his life. “In an act of brutal bravery, he pulled the magazine out of the darkness it lay in,” he argues. Eduardo Rubaudonadeu, the publication’s photographer, who was heavily inspired by David LaChapelle, was responsible for this photo report and much of the visual identity of this LGTBI+ medium.
It was the pivotal moment that made society look at her differently,” recalls the filmmaker. For Mario Suárez, this cover was why he applied for an internship at Zero, until years later he became one of the newsroom chiefs, he recalls. “There is not a single gay person in his life who has not suffered some kind of aggression, which usually begins in childhood, and we have been silent for a long time,” says the journalist.
Suárez and Ainstein recall that Zero had on the table the testimony of a Real Madrid frontman who, when the team found out about it, Carlos Díaz, Zero’s director of communications, received an email from the team’s director of communications about the moment, prompting them to do so , to wait until they come out at the end of the season. “Due to the pressure and fear, this statement did not materialize. Football is now, 20 years later, a place where the most toxic sections of society seem to have their place and continue to allow intolerance and behaviors like racism with Vinicius.”
“The most complex part was translating the identity of the magazine onto the documentary, so that the keys played in the newsroom would resonate within it, allowing the texture of the paper to be heard and seen,” comments the director. In fact, they investigated the color that was dominant in the release, and that’s why the magenta shade is so present in the miniseries, he says.
“Jesús Váquez warns that these LGTBI+ rights can be taken away without them knowing,” warns the director.
Eduardo Rubaudonadeu, photographer and responsible for much of the special. visual identity of the Movistar Plus+ magazine
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