'Belén': Film Screening and Panel Discussion

• Florence School of Transnational Governance

MAREA STG Collective

Belén is a pseudonym for a real 25 year-old young woman who was unjustly imprisoned in Tucuman, a Province in Argentina, after going to the public hospital to get health assistance for an obstetric emergency (a spontaneous abortion when she didn't even know she was pregnant). This is a story about the legal defense towards her liberation, that connects feminist legal advocacy and a groundbreaking grassroots advocacy effort, turning Belén into a unique story to make the problem of abortion criminalization and its consequences visible. This problem is not unique to Argentina; it is a regional problem in other countries where abortion access is even narrower.

The event gathers legal experts and feminist activists to discuss after the screening.

Discussants:

• Monica Arango Olaya, Max Webber Fellow, Dept. of Law
• Anna Śledzińska-Simon, Visiting Fellow, Dept. of Law
• Laura Rahm, Policy Leader Fellow, STG

Moderator:

Sabrina Frydman, Policy Leader Fellow, STG

Special online participant: Soledad Deza, Belén's attorney in real life, played by Dolores Fonzi in the movie.

More information:

Interview to Soledad Deza (Belen's attorney) and Dolores Fonzi (movie director and actor playing Soledad) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaU7T5aO3o 

Recently co-authored blog by panel participants about this issue https://euideas.eui.eu/justice-denied-how-international-courts-are-failing-to-uphold-reproductive-justice 

More on the movie: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/05/belen-review-gripping-true-story-of-woman-unjustly-accused-of-abortion