The artist from Gran Canaria, Koset Quintana, has accused film director Armando Ravelo on Instagram of making sexual advances and offering her drugs and porn when she was 14 years old, facts that the filmmaker has acknowledged to EFE, although he denies that they can be considered sexual violence.
The multidisciplinary creator has been encouraged to make this public complaint after reading, in recent days, "the testimonies hidden for so long against Carlos Vermut", a Madrid director and screenwriter winner of the Golden Shell of San Sebastián with Magical Girl (2014) who has been accused of subjecting them to sexual violence between May 2014 and February 2022 by a film student, an employee of one of his productions, and a worker in the cultural sector.
Regarding Ravelo, Quintana, who met him in 2014 at a film workshop, recalls that he has been subsidized by the Government of the Canary Islands and claims to know "much more serious testimonies" than the one she has highlighted on the aforementioned social network, where she shows screenshots of telephone conversations held with the filmmaker.
The creator from Gran Canaria states in her publication that she believes she is "speaking on behalf of many" when she affirms that "we are very tired of there being so many men in high places using their power to rape, harass, and manipulate others" and emphasizes that in this case, "it is once again a film director."
In statements to EFE, Armando Ravelo, who was 31 years old in 2014, explained this Monday that at that time he "was very high and believed he was unpunishable", which, together with a manifest addiction to sex, which he claims to have overcome after going to therapy, led him to "do a lot of damage to many women" with whom he had "lasting relationships."
Therefore, the filmmaker from Gran Canaria, who accepts that after Quintana's complaint he "will not be able to work in film in the Canary Islands again", understands that now "many people have jumped on the bandwagon" of the creator's complaint "because he has left many corpses along the way."
In addition to emphasizing that when he met Koset Quintana in person, he thought she was "an adult", so he thought she was joking with him when she told him she was a minor, Ravelo denies having exercised sexual violence, or any physical contact of that nature, but he does admit to a "reprehensible" behavior that he understands should be denounced.
Moreover, he encourages anyone who has suffered a situation like this to do the same, although he asks "not to put everyone in the same bag, nor all situations."
The filmmaker emphasizes that the therapy he has undergone in recent years has helped him "to take the reins of his life and improve", to the point of being able to have "beautiful relationships" with the women around him, hence he now chooses to face the consequences of complaints like Quintana's with "honesty", to which others have joined on Instagram, who claim to have been mistreated by Ravelo, and for which he has received numerous supports.