A young woman named Julieta stumbles one night of 2014 into an emergency room in Tucumán with excruciating abdominal pain. The camera follows her closely as a nurse and a violent night-shift doctor dismiss her problems, a nightmarish sequence shot that ends with Julieta handcuffed to the operating table and facing a small cardboard box with a dead fetus in it.

‘This was your child,’ a policewoman scolds her. Terrified and sobbing, Julieta denies she was ever pregnant, and only manages to beg the police and call for her mom. 

The harrowing opening scene of Belén is a raw depiction of obstetric violence and police abuse. It is also a clear step-up in Dolores Fonzi’s directorial skills in her second film, a solid retelling of a real-life case that became a landmark for the Argentine women’s movement. 

The real Belén — whose real name remains unknown — was sentenced to prison for first-degree murder after suffering from a miscarriage she wasn’t even aware she was having. Her case sparked a feminist tidal wave that would eventually lead to the passing of a bill to legalize abortion in late 2020. 

As in her first film........

© Buenos Aires Herald