In one of the first high-profile sexual assault cases in Latin America following the #MeToo reckoning, Chilean director Nicolás López, who was renowned for his raunchy box office comedy hits “Sin Filtro,” “No Estoy Loca” and the “Que Pena” trilogy, has been sentenced to five years and one day in prison for two cases of sexual abuse.
The charges against López first surfaced in 2018, when several actresses came forward to accuse him of rape and sexual abuse. The court dismissed the charges of rape, but found López guilty of the latter charge.
López has also been banned from coming near his accusers and is permanently disqualified from running for public office. He’s expected to file an appeal on May 20.
During these past five years, López’s production company, Sobras, stopped operating and producing content.
Netflix, which had licensed several of López’s films in the past and had an agreement for one of his new projects, placed their collaboration with the filmmaker under review.
At least eight actresses and models, among them Josefina Montané, Lucy Cominetti, Daniela Ginestar, Andrea Velasco and María Vidaurre, came forward with damning allegations of sexual harassment against López.
In an Instagram post then, López said: “I don’t understand what is happening nor the break in my years-long relationships of trust and affection. If I sometimes have been misunderstood, I apologize. But I’m not a stalker nor an abuser.”
López also posted a video to YouTube, in which he announced he has decided to resign from his company, Sobras, in order prevent the controversy from affecting his partners and collaborators.
Ironically, some of López’s films on Netflix, “No Filter” (“Sin Filtro”) and “I’m Not Crazy” (“No Estoy Loca”), deal with women and their right to speak their mind. Both were part of a femme-focused trilogy he had planned.
“I’m Not Crazy” was López’s third consecutive film to open at No. 1 in Chile, in January 2018, outpacing international hits like “Wonder Woman,” “Justice League” and “Coco” on their debut weekends. “No Filter,” co-financed by Netflix, has been remade in Mexico, Spain and Argentina, among other territories.
López has also collaborated with genre helmer Eli Roth on a slew of films, including “Aftershock,” “The Green Inferno” and “Knock, Knock.”
Attorney Juan Pablo Hermosilla, who represents some of the women, then said: “This is a case that will reverberate because we have a director who works in the U.S. and who produces for the North American market, so we are not only going to apply Chilean legal standards, but also North America’s. And that’s why Netflix and any other company that has a presence in the U.S. are in a complicated position: they cannot sponsor nor support behavior of abuse or mistreatment of artists.”