‘Belén’ San Sebastian Review: When the System Becomes the Punishment

Belén arrived one dawn at the Avellaneda Hospital in Tucumán suffering from severe abdominal pain. After being admitted with a diagnosis of “acute abdomen,” she suffered a miscarriage […] In response to this obstetric emergency, she was taken to the gynecology ward for a dilation and curettage procedure. When she awoke from the anesthesia, she found herself surrounded by police officers. The medical staff had accused her of inducing an abortion. Almost immediately, the judicial system intervened, and five days later, instead of being discharged home, she was transferred directly to the Santa Ester women’s prison.»

This is how Dr. Soledad Deza opens her report on what became known as the “Caso Belén”—a case that shocked Argentina and drew international attention in the mid-2010s. Belén, the new film by Dolores Fonzi, begins with this same incident. Inspired by Ana Correa’s book Somos Belén, the film reconstructs the ordeal of a young woman (her real name has not been made public) who arrives at a hospital with excruciating pain. The staff, weary or indifferent, administer painkillers and pay little attention. When she asks to use the bathroom, she returns bleeding heavily. Soon after, she falls asleep, only to wake up handcuffed and accused of murder.

The year is 2014. Argentina is still years away from passing the law legalizing abortion, and in conservative northern provinces like Tucumán, what happened to Belén was treated not as a tragedy but as a crime. Nobody listened to her or her family. Her court-appointed lawyer (played by Julieta Cardinali) wants the case off her desk as quickly as possible. Everything suggests that Belén—jailed while awaiting trial instead of being allowed to remain at home—will be convicted of “aggravated homicide due to kinship.” The likely outcome: a life sentence. By chance, Deza (portrayed by Fonzi herself) learns of the case, begins investigating, and decides to help, even though officially it is not hers to handle.

Belén focuses squarely on the legal battle, unfolding with the kind of procedural clarity reminiscent of certain strands of American courtroom cinema. About Belén herself, we learn very little, apart from the steadfast efforts of her mother and sister to be heard by a justice system determined to ignore them. Deza is given somewhat more shading: she is married (her husband is played by Sergio Prina, from Un cabo suelto), the mother of two children, and a woman driven by obsession, indignation, and disbelief at what the accused has been forced to endure.

At first, Belén (Camila Plaate) is convicted. It is only then that Deza and her colleague (Laura Paredes) take up the case on appeal, quickly realizing the scale of the challenge ahead. The judge (Luis Machín) withholds the case files, the local press brands the young woman a murderer, and even reveals her identity—despite legal prohibitions—causing immense damage to her family’s social and professional lives. When Deza tries to appear on television to present the defense’s perspective, the effort backfires. The media and much of Tucumán’s society refuse to give her a voice. Soon after, she begins receiving threats and even direct attacks.

From this point on, Fonzi’s film shifts its focus to the grassroots mobilization around the case. Deza assembles a multidisciplinary team, determined to amplify Belén’s story both nationally and internationally, hoping that visibility might tilt the balance of justice. The narrative moves toward the marches, the masks, and the demonstrations that many see as precursors to Argentina’s “green wave,” the feminist movement that would soon become a driving force in the campaign for legal abortion. Alongside these protests, the legal team uncovers a pattern of judicial errors, negligence, and outright misconduct that made Belén’s ordeal possible.

Unlike Blondi, Fonzi’s previous and more personal film, Belén is constructed as a classical courtroom drama, its structure closer to that of Argentina, 1985—directed by Fonzi’s partner, Santiago Mitre. Both films take a landmark case, follow the lawyers at its center, and weave together their private lives, the looming threats, and the courtroom battles into the dramatic core. In Fonzi’s version, however, the demonstrations and the international pressure of human rights organizations emerge as equally central forces, underscoring the enormity of the injustice faced by a young woman in provincial Argentina.

If Blondi was intimate and idiosyncratic, Belén is driven by outrage. It is a film born of indignation at the brutality of a patriarchal system that criminalized women’s bodies. Even though Argentina’s abortion law passed in 2020 seemed to mark a turning point, today’s political climate suggests the country may not be far from sliding back into defending the same kinds of abuses suffered by Belén. That, ultimately, is the film’s purpose: to remind us—relentlessly—of how easily women’s rights can be trampled when society chooses not to listen.