“Belén” (2025) is Argentina’s submission to the 2026 Oscars’ “Best International Feature” category and adapts Ana Correa’s nonfiction book, “Somos Belén,” which translates to “We are Belén.” Director and cowriter Dolores Fonzi stars as deeply Catholic Christian Attorney Soledad Deza, who decides to appeal a guilty verdict against defendant, Julieta Estefania Gomez (Camila Plaate), who had a miscarriage, but was accused of having an abortion. The movie covers the events leading up to the hearing and the ruling of the appeal. Because of the inflammatory nature of the case, Julieta did not want her family suffering from a backlash, so Deza calls her Belén in the media, which is the Spanish word for Bethlehem, a city associated with the Nativity Story. Will Julieta be released from prison and cleared of all charges or will she, Deza or someone else associated with the case be harmed in the process? While a deeply conventional film, the acting, production quality and relevance during a global reactionary resurgence in the public domain, particularly in the US, to potentially criminalize any woman who does not give birth to a living baby elevates the film and become a utopian resistance film.
Starting with a frenzied ride to and stay at the hospital on March 12, 2014, “Belén” opens with the fateful night that Belén got arrested. Fonzi wisely hangs back and frames the events of that night as a mystery. The camera stays a respectful distance from the bathroom then shows the doctor talking to law enforcement far from Julieta’s mother who never gets consulted about her daughter’s condition. Fonzi creates reasonable doubt but does not pull punches about details that are less disputed such as the brusque bedside manner of the doctor or a team of law enforcement busting into a room during a medical procedure while Julieta is in stirrups. These images are alarming, and all sides agree to it without realizing how horrifying it is. Fonzi’s use of color throughout the film starts here. The hospital interior and exterior are a sickly tenebrous green, a color initially associated with bureaucracy.
In subsequent scenes, the color green begins to transform with Julieta’s prospects of winning the case. The panel of three judges sit in green chairs. Deza wears a more vibrant green, a color that becomes associated with the grassroots movement that she and her team must start to grab the public’s attention to leverage pubic pressure against the court system. Later, during a moment outside of the prison walls, Julieta is stunned at the breathtaking verdant nature surrounding her but invisible up to that point. “Belén” is a film about how nature is perverted through bureaucracy and finding a way to restore the natural order in human domains.
Argentina has a criminal code like the European Napoleonic model, and for a film that is a legal drama, it spends little time in court, which makes it riveting. Fonzi conveys how a court case rises and falls based on no one noticing, caring or challenging the irregularities and weaponized incompetence. It is unfortunately a universal frustration which requires dogged determination from Deza, who is a great figure to have on your side, especially in an abortion case. It also highlights how delays and continuances are the death of justice, and a good lawyer is always prepared and leaps at any timely opportunity to represent their client if they care about them.
“Belén” frames Deza as deeply devout, a loving daughter, wife and mother and a lawyer who sees her profession as the manifestation of God. This image reclaims God for a controversial side whereas before the people in the establishment who are violating the law act as if they are allied with God whether it is with a cross above the judicial panel’s bench or a baptism. While the equivalent to Deza in the US would be a Gloria Allred type, Fonzi plays her as deeply anxious and self-effacing. To buy some time, she claims to have a urinary tract infection, and instead of her male colleague being grossed out, he knows that she is up to her shenanigans. Deza is often shown lying to achieve small victories such as help her client meet with her, access a file or some other minute right that should not require chicanery to exercise. The film has a lot more comedic moments than the average person would expect from a legal drama.
While a team backs up Deza, and many people play a role in the story, their names get mentioned too quick or not at all. If a viewer’s life depended on remembering anyone’s name, they better have a will. Instead, Fonzi focuses on how the case affects everyone related to the case. The community is a small one so Judge Farina (Luis Machin) knows Deza’s dad, and her right-hand woman, Barbara (cowriter Laura Paredes) had a relationship with the incompetent defense counsel, Beatriz Camaño (Julieta Cardinali), who cared more about guarding her territory than her client’s fate. While the media battles and the threats of violence on the ground are predictable, they still pack a visceral punch instead of feeling repetitive, and the personal connections between the players shows how random justice can be. If Deza was less connected and less devoted to leveraging all her resources to this case, could Julieta ever get justice even with facts in her favor?
“Belén” also does not depict women as universally good. Most of the villains in this story are women from prison guards to medical professionals, from law enforcement to lawyers. The women are often harsher and more invested in diminishing women on the defense’s side. Deza is introduced at a parent teacher meeting with all the mothers giving her the side eye for choosing work instead of accommodating a late teacher.
Julieta plays second fiddle probably because the real-life woman is still anonymous, but Plaate makes a meal out of a morsel, and she really seems as if she is from the right economic background to depict that character, not an actor slumming it briefly for an awards gambit. Red plays a huge role in Julieta’s story as the accused murderer. Think Lady MacBeth, but it also becomes associated with nature and tomatoes then Deza wears more red or red hued colors when she is engaging as a public figure more than as legal counsel. Fonzi includes a lot of oneiric sequences to depict Julieta’s time in jail, but more importantly cats and kittens. Initially Julieta shuns their comfort, which underscores how people talk about her as a murderer, but as she is rehumanized through this process, she begins to accept the company of cats.
If you are unfamiliar with Argentina’s history, when women protest, things get done. When the Argentine military dictatorship “disappeared” thousands of people, women began to protest for justice and not stop. So mobilizing protest again on behalf of Belén elevates Julieta’s cause to protest unofficial continuation of systemic abuses against citizens as human rights abuses, not solely women’s issues. In 2020, Argentina legalized abortion. “Belén” is a vigorous, fast paced David and Goliath story that shows how people can force the system to work if they demand that it lives up to its ideals, but everyone must play their part.
