Alicia Esteve (Tania) Head was never in New York on September 11, 2001.
From Barcelona, she invented Tania Head: a survivor from the 78th floor of the South Tower, with a fiancé named Dave who supposedly died that day.
The lie was so convincing that she eventually chaired the World Trade Center Survivors Association and met with Rudolph Giuliani, then mayor of New York.
For years, hundreds of real victims cried alongside her, listened to her give speeches, and trusted her leadership.
In 2007, New York Times exposed that everything was false. She was never in the towers and never lost anyone that day. Most outrageously, in the United States, adopting a false identity is only a crime if there is financial gain involved, and she never asked for money.
Now the documentary ‘The Survivor’, directed by Kike Maíllo, reconstructs how a lie without legal punishment managed to manipulate the pain of a real tragedy for years.