Netflix | Ashunda Case | Renato Cisneros Netflix’s newest hit and the debate surrounding true crime fiction ARE

In 2001, Azunda Yong Pastera Porto, born a year earlier in China, was adopted by a Galician couple, Alfonso Pastera and Rosario Porto. Thirteen years later in Spain, the woman’s name became famous when she was found dead on the side of a country road in Santiago de Compostela. Police investigations led to a high-profile inquest where the parents were found to be responsible for the crime. Both were sentenced to eighteen years in prison, although the precise motive for the murder was never determined. In 2020, mother Rosario hanged herself in her cell in a prison in Porto Avila; This is not the first time he has attempted suicide.

The tragedy is being discussed again across Spain these days as a result of the fictional miniseries The Assunta Case, which premiered on Netflix a month ago and is leading the list of most-watched productions on stage. There, the events that took place in Galicia in 2013 are recreated with Rosario and Alfonso as protagonists, but also the role of police officers, judges, lawyers and journalists who participated in the process that lasted for more than two years is described. .

From a narrative point of view, the series is impeccable, the timeline it tells and the characters it presents: solid, reliable, compassionate, dismissive and fear-inducing. It should be noted that the script is careful not to underline the cruelty surrounding the murder, but that does not absolve the viewer from encountering disturbing scenes.

The controversy that the Ashunda case has created beyond the film is interesting. Over the years, there have been voices questioning the moral validity of true crime (fiction that recreates true crimes), many of them seeking to pique public interest rather than contribute to the investigation. unresolved), or not for social reflection. To make matters worse, critics of the genre warn, some unscrupulous producers operate without the consent of the victims’ relatives, ignoring the psychological damage caused by reenacting the family nightmare.

In 2018, Patricia Ramírez, the mother of boy Gabriel Cruz, was murdered in Almeria by the girlfriend of his father, who is now serving a life sentence. From prison, the woman records “a show” about the event, which is condemned by Gabriel’s mother because her son’s memory will clearly be used for profitable purposes.

Producer Xelo Montesinos thinks that when he finds new clues, true crime is justified, whether or not he gets the permission of the victim’s relatives. “That’s the goal any producer or writer wants,” he said in a note in El Paz. For his part, Ramón Campos, the producer of El Caso Azunda, believes that these productions should encourage a discussion and not indulge in moral hypocrisy: “To do a real crime you have to have ethics.”

Earlier, in 2017, in a documentary that can be seen on Netflix entitled What the truth hides, many wondered how necessary it was to bring the death of the little girl Asundha to a TV fiction.

Writer and journalist Nuria Laberti believes that the miniseries lacks the slightest empathy for the girl. “At the end of the series we know little or nothing about Assunta Pastera, and what we do know (she was talented, she loved to dance) we are told by her murderers (…),” he wrote. Latest column. Screenwriter Paola Rando, on the other hand, thinks there are contributions. “The Ashunda case,” he says, “teaches everything about the other side of illness.”

True crime is a genre with a long history, but the polarization it causes is new, at least in Spain, where many directors and producers attribute the weakness to murderers: repeatedly returning to the scene of the crime.