The research carried out by Anna Petrus Pons, a lecturer on the Bachelor's Degree in Audiovisual Communication between 2013 and 2025, focused on the critical analysis of cinematic resistance to rape culture in Western cinema prior to the #MeToo feminist movement (2017), as well as the aesthetic mechanisms through which this resistance is articulated.

The Ministry of Equality specifically highlighted the thesis’s "high quality, analytical rigour and originality, as well as its significant contribution to the study of the cinematic representation of sexual violence". The award forms part of the Government Delegation against Gender Violence Awards for doctoral theses on violence against women.

Anna Petrus hopes that the research will contribute to raising greater public awareness of sexual violence: "I hope this recognition encourages a stronger commitment among film professionals to representing this violence and its consequences in a way that more accurately reflects reality."

The thesis, “The embracing gaze: the aesthetics of empathy as a form of cinematic resistance to rape culture”, was defended at UIC on 7 November 2025. It was supervised by Dr Pilar Medina-Bravo and Dr Laura G. Pousa and overseen by the vice-rector for Students and Sustainability at UIC, Dr Esther Jiménez.

The research, carried out as part of the Doctorate in Communication, Education and Humanities at UIC, identified three recurring aesthetic configurations that encourage empathetic responses towards victims: the presence of silent testimony, strategies that elide violence, and the inscription of violence on victims' bodies. According to the thesis abstract, "These forms are not mutually exclusive, but frequently coexist and interact within the same work, generating complex and, at times, contradictory ethical configurations. Among them, the representation of the bodily consequences of trauma stands out as the most consistent means of fostering an empathetic response, insofar as it shifts the focus towards victims' experiences and avoids the spectacularisation of violence."

The significance of the findings lies in their practical and transformative potential. According to the author, the cinematic practices identified can contribute positively to the eradication of sexual violence from the collective imagination. The research also provides a transferable analytical framework that makes it possible to compare and critically examine the ways in which cinema fosters, or inhibits, empathetic responses towards victims, as well as to analyse the tensions and contradictions that arise between film ethics and aesthetics in each specific case.