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COSMO PREMIERES ELEFANTE, ITS NEW LGBTQI+ SHORT FILM

On 28 June, International LGBTQI+ Pride Day is celebrated all over the world, and COSMO is once again taking part in this day of activism with the premiere of a new original short film: Elefante. Goya Award winner Javier Pereira (Stockholm, Que Dios Nos Perdone) and Jason Fernández (Libertad, Extraña forma de vida) star in this film about the workplace discrimination that LGBTQI+ people still suffer today.

Mario (Javier Pereira) is a lawyer with a brilliant career who starts working for a well-known, prestigious law firm. There he is reunited with his childhood friend, Jaime (Jason Fernandez), who he hasn't seen in over 20 years. The highly competitive and conservative office environment is not the best place for childhood memories or other issues in his personal life to come to the surface.

COSMO premieres Elefante, a short film directed by Lasdelcine in collaboration with Apoyo Positivo. Producers, directors and screenwriters Cristina and María José Martín have worked again with the channel after creating the COSMO short, De menos, a film against gender violence that has won three awards and has been selected in more than 50 festivals in six countries. The NGO Apoyo Positivo collaborates in this short as part of its fiction series Indetectables, a social initiative that fights discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community through cinema. The rest of the cast comprises Javier Lago (Antidisturbios), Ana del Arco (Machos Alfa), Antonio Mayo (La que se avecina) and Joan Bentallé (Amor eterno).

In Spain 72 per cent of LGBTQI+ people have not come out of the closet at work, even if they have done so in other areas of their lives. The fear of being mocked, of not being valued for their professional qualities or even of losing their jobs are the most common reasons. Although there are ways to report discriminatory treatment, there is a real fear that your sexual orientation or gender identity will impact your work or directly prevent you from finding employment. 

The solution to this scourge is to create safe spaces and promote diverse and inclusive labour policies, but also to break complicit silences and become visible allies of LGBTQI+ people instead of ignoring these situations. Most of the population respect LGBTQI+ people but they still stand aside when someone makes a discriminatory joke or a disrespectful comment.

COSMO premieres Elefante on 28 June at 23.00. The short will be available on-demand on COSMO ON, and on the channel's website and social media. This is the second short film COSMO has produced in support of LGBTQI+ people. The other one was 17 minutos con Nora, a short film about the rights of trans people whose extraordinary track record includes a nomination for the 2023 Goya Awards, 30 awards and more than 90 selections at festivals in a dozen countries.

Elefante is the seventh original short film produced by COSMO. The other five titles, dedicated to raising awareness about gender-based violence, are Animal (2018), A quien dices amar (2019), Lo de aquella noche (2020), De menos (2021) and Flechas (2022), which won two awards at the Medina del Campo Film Week and has been selected for a dozen festivals.