Undercover (Spanish: La infiltrada) is a 2024 Spanish thriller film directed by Arantxa Echevarría starring Carolina Yuste and Luis Tosar.After several years undercover, lurking in the circles of the Abertzale left as she pretends to be a young sympathizer of the ETA terrorist group, a police officer finally gets the chance she's been gunning for:
ETA gets in touch with her. They need to use her apartment for two ETA members whose objective is to prepare several attacks. The most difficult mission of her life begins now: to inform her superiors while cohabitating with two terrorist who, if at any point they suspect her, would kill her at the drop of a hat.
Spain's Film Factory sneaks up to police action thriller ’Undercover’ (exclusive)
Vicente Canales’ Film Factory has acquired international rights to Arantxa Echevarría’s action thriller Undercover.
It is being produced by Santiago Segura and María Luisa Gutiérrez’s Bowfinger International Pictures in partnership with Beta Fiction Spain (BFS), and Álvaro Esto también Pasará, with backing from Movistar Plus+, Atresmedia and broadcaster Eitb.
Carolina Yuste and Luis Tosar are starring in the film which is now in production. It is based on the story of the 20 year old woman who was the only member of the national police force who managed to infiltrate the Basque terrorist group, ETA and helped to dismantle it.
UNDERCOVER LA INFILTRADA
“I want to see the end of this. I want it to be me who’s on the front line.” Spoken with a fierce conviction, undercover agent Mónica Marín (played by Carolina Yuste) reminds her boss, police Inspector, Ángel Salcedo (Luis Tosar), she’s unequivocally prepared to confront both a machista society and the immense danger ahead. So begins the psychological drama thriller La Infiltrada, the Spanish film nominated for 13 Goya Awards in 2025 (including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay).
The project is based on the true story of police officer Elena Tejada (pseudonym, Aranzazu ‘Arantxa’ Berradre Martín) who spent eight years secretly infiltrating Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the armed nationalist, leftist organization seeking independence from Spain. For those of us only faintly familiar with the region’s history, here’s a brief recap:
During the late 1960s, under Francisco Franco’s brutal dictatorship in Spain, ETA – translated as Basque Homeland and Liberty – became an infamous militant group fighting for the liberation of the Basque region, which spans northern Spain and southeastern France.
Classified as a terrorist organization by Spanish, French, and British authorities, ETA spent nearly 60 years targeting politicians, military, and/or police-affiliated persons, including their families. It is reported their attacks claimed the lives of 856 people and injured hundreds of others between 1968 and 2018.
On the other side of the nationalist debate, there’s a different story – one of armed struggle against the Spanish state and its repressive Franco regime. With a distinct language (Euskera), unique customs, and traditions, the Euskaldunak (Basque Peoples) are culturally and ethnically different. They do not consider themselves Spaniards, nor are they. Contrary to what some have implied, ETA’s secular nationalism is unaffiliated with the Islamist fundamentalist group al-Qaeda. And it has been reported that many of ETA’s attacks were “preceded by a warning call, allowing people to evacuate before the explosion.”
Here’s the thing about La Infiltrada that left me with mixed feelings – as a staunch advocate of Puerto Rican independence, I keep turning to the expression, “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.” I began reflecting on iconic fights for liberation like the Palestinian guerrera and leader Leila Khaled, as well as Boricua warriors, Lolita Lebrón and Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. For many of us, they represent the struggles of oppressed peoples. To be clear, I’m certainly not advocating for the killing of innocent civilians – which is what the reports indicate ETA did. Still, throughout the film I kept wondering: Is there something the director Arantxa Echevarría and her team intentionally omitted?
Set against the backdrop of 90s Spain, we watch as agent Marín (who goes by the alias, Arantxa) discusses with Inspector Salcedo (El Inhumano) the high-risk operation to dismantle one of ETA’s most brutal divisions, the Commando Donosti. At a meeting in an empty, close-to-closing restaurant, we catch the disbelief in the Chief of Police’s voice as he selects the small photo of the only woman (Marín/Arantxa) of the case’s five potential agents. “You’re joking by including this girl among them?” Salcedo decides to prove his point with a concrete example: motioning to the young woman employee sweeping the floor just a few feet away, “If I told you she is an undercover agent, would you believe me?” Referring to Marín, he reminds his incredulous superior that “As a woman, no one will be suspicious of her.”
As it turns out, he’s spot on.
For nearly a decade, agent Marín faces life-threatening situations as she escorts high-level ETA members to secret locations, crossing the border into France to do so, actively participating in riots during pro-Basque independence protests, “celebrating” the murders of fellow police colleagues, and even living for nearly two years with ETA leaders.
Two scenes from La Infiltrada linger vividly in my mind.
In one, seemingly repulsed by her cohabitation with two of the groups’ members (one with whom she has consensual sex with), we watch as she intensely brushes her teeth. Sticking her tongue out, she scrubs the top of it with aggressive intensity and spits the mixture of saliva and toothpaste into the sink. That visual had a powerful poetic impact on me, recalling as it does that the mouth is a portal, a literal and metaphorical gateway to what we digest (or sometimes expel). By vigorously scraping her tongue, Mónica is attempting to wipe away the filth she wilfully partook in (i.e., the lie/double life she is living for the ‘greater good’ of her country).
In another scene, Marín, sits naked in the bathtub, scrubbing her breasts and legs. Her angst is palpable as it jumps off the screen onto our laps, the camera capturing her profile in intimate detail. Opening her mouth, she lets out a silent scream. Of course, by this point, the audience fully understands the danger Marín is facing. Not only is she living with two dangerous men deemed terrorists by her country’s authorities, but she also has crossed the line into sexual intimacy with one of them.
It’s difficult not to empathize with her harrowing ordeal as she tries to dismantle part of ETA from within. I enjoyed La Infiltrada and can appreciate why it received those 13 Goya award nominations, as well as the Premio Forqué’s Best Actress Award for Carolina Yuste, plus Premios ASECAN y CYGNUS for Best Picture. Its accolades speak to the film’s undeniable emotional impact and artistic achievement.
“La Infiltrada” Looks at the Real Life of Elena Tejada
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Bluesky: We love the Spanish Film Festival in Melbourne. 'Undercover' was a gripping thriller.
In recent days I have read very positive reviews about the Spanish film "La infiltrada" (The infiltrator), which deals with ETA terrorism.
An excellent documentary by Iñaki Arteta about Gregorio Ordóñez, murdered by ETA in 1995
'27 Minutes', an excellent short film about one of the crimes committed by ETA terrorists
This feature film, directed by Arantxa Echevarría, recently won the Goya Award for Best Film. In addition, its lead actress, Carolina Yuste, won the award for Best Actress. I am not going to discuss the film's cinematic merits. I have no doubt that it has them, as did other films that did not convince me for various reasons.
Obviously, being a film that talks about ETA terrorism, I cannot stay in the cinematographic aspects, in the same way that I would not limit myself to evaluating those aspects when talking about a film dedicated to the Holocaust. Spain suffered decades of ETA terrorism, a terrorism that left 853 people murdered, including 22 children and babies, in addition to more than 2,600 people injured and mutilated, almost 90 people kidnapped and 180,000 Basques expelled from their land by separatist terror. In the face of all this horror, the response of Spanish cinema has been rather disappointing.
Leaving aside the excellent films of Iñaki Arteta and a few other exceptions, Spanish cinema has dealt less with ETA terrorism than with the much more distant Civil War, and when it has done so it has often been to give a dire view of what happened, in which it seems that there were good and bad on both "sides".
Certainly, "La infiltrada" shows the kind of fanatics that exist in ETA and its surroundings, and I use the present tense because that world still exists, its political arm is still very active and ETA admirers continue to use violence to prevent others from exercising their rights (you can ask any member of Vox in the Basque provinces and Navarra about this).
However, this film confirms the saying that "the devil is in the details." At this point, I must warn you that I am going to refer to some of the film's content, so if anyone wants to see it, it is better to stop reading here.
In "La infiltrada" we see details that I didn't like at all. For example, police commanders who consider other police officers to be expendable. In one scene, an ETA sympathiser cries inconsolably because one of her coreligionists - she says - was arrested and tortured and a girl was supposedly raped (remember that ETA instructed its terrorists to report false tortures and even to cause self-harm). We don't see that same crybaby celebrating, as many of those fanatics did, every murder perpetrated by ETA. Whoever wants to see it, it's better to stop reading here.
We also see a terrorist who seems like a nice guy, with whom the protagonist even has sexual relations, which are not shown explicitly. This terrorist who seems like such a nice guy confesses to the undercover agent that he shot a prison officer, without killing him, and then kicked him on the ground when his gun jammed. As a counterpoint, another ETA terrorist appears who is rude, ill-mannered and sexist (although he is Galician).
The part I liked the least was the scene of Gregorio Ordóñez's murder. The film shows the crime with great crudeness. Good in this sense. But just before, we see the murdered man in the restaurant saying "the party pays" (we deduce that he is referring to the food), as if he were another politician, when Gregorio was brave, a man of principles and an admirable person.
We also see Basque policemen hitting the protagonist without any reason, thus transmitting the discourse of the ETA environment about the Police. As for the National Police, the agents are better represented than in other films, but we see scenes of rivalry with the Civil Guard that do not make much sense, such as police commanders showing their anger because the Civil Guards have caught ETA terrorists, as if the arrests of these bloodthirsty criminals were not a cause for celebration among all the officials.
Honestly, I didn't find the film to be at all criticisable (there are positive things, especially when compared to other feature films about ETA terrorism), but I think we're satisfied with very little if we see in "La infiltrada" a very good film about ETA. Spain has lived through decades of terror caused by fanatics who wanted to break our national unity by means of bombs and shots to the back of the head, and the story of that horror deserves something better, more forceful and more carefully detailed.
I leave you here with the trailer of the film (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):
