Women call for Woody Allen statue in Oviedo to be taken down

The Asturias Feminist Organisation says the veteran film director is 'not fit to be given a tribute' of this type, in light of allegations of sexual abuse against his adopted daughter Dylan having come to light again.

A call for the statue to be removed was already made when the group staged a demonstration on November 25, for International Anti-Gender Violence Day.

The hyperrealist bronze figure, the work of Asturias-based sculptor Vicente Santarua, was set up on the C/ de las Milicias Nacionales in 2003 in homage to the scriptwriter, director and actor on his visit to Oviedo when he was presented with what was then known as the Prince of Asturias Award.

His comments on the location: “Oviedo is a delicious, exotic, beautiful and pedestrianised city; it's as though it didn't belong to this world, as though it didn't really exist – Oviedo is like a fairytale,” are engraved into the statue, which has now become a major tourist attraction.

Allen has visited Asturias on numerous occasions for his holidays, and chose locations from the region to use in scenes for his international blockbuster Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Scarlett Johansson and husband-and-wife team Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.

Although Dylan's accusations against her adoptive father Woody Allen are not new – she told her mother Mia Farrow about her ordeal in 1992, when she was seven and her parents were getting a divorce – they have come up once again as numerous Hollywood women have begun to speak out publicly about sexual harassment and assault in the industry.

During an interview on CBS This Morning in the USA, Dylan, now 32 and married with a 16-month-old daughter of her own, broke down when she talked about how her father used to 'take her into the loft' of her mother's country house in Connecticut, telling her to lie on her stomach and play with her brother's train set, on days when her mother was out shopping.

Dylan says her father then groped her, but that two medical centres who examined her could not find any evidence of abuse and claimed her mother had tried to 'brainwash' her against her father.

“When I told my mother what had happened, she was so angry that I thought it was me who'd done something wrong,” Dylan said.

She felt ashamed, and so denied it when her mother took her to the doctor.

Woody Allen did not 'take this attitude' with his other children, Dylan said – one of whom, Ronan, Allen's and Farrow's only biological child in common, has always backed his sister in her allegations.

Other supporters of Dylan's are actresses Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon, both of whom are backing the #Time'sUp movement calling for an end to women's silence about abuse and harassment.

Mia Farrow, before divorcing Allen, had been a regular in Spain herself – she was well-known locally in Dénia (Alicante province), where she became fallera queen during the famous March fiestas.

Photograph: Wikimedia Commons/Noemí García García