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Feminist protests at the door of the cinema, canceled television interviews , suspended promotion and censored questions . The arrival on Wednesday at the movie theaters in France of the new Roman Polanski film "J'accuse" (The officer and the spy), based on the Dreyfus case, is surrounded by controversy following the new accusations of rape against Franco-Polish director. Polanski has denied the accusations through his lawyer.

"Polanski rapist, guilty cinemas, complicit audience," about thirty feminists shouted at the door of the Le Champo cinema in Paris on Tuesday night, days after French actress and photographer Valentine Monnier accused Polanski of mistreating and raping her in 1975 in a chalet in Switzerland after skiing when she was 18 years old.

"End to the law of silence in the world of cinema," read one of the banners carried by the protesters, according to the videos and photographs spread on social networks. Some of the feminists carried signs with the names of the women the director has allegedly violated in the past. Protesters urged all French movie theater owners to "suspend the screening of a rapist's work" and the public not to go see the movie when they consider that when they buy a ticket they become accomplices of rape.

The feminist protest forced to cancel the preview of the film on Tuesday at Le Champo, a central Parisian cinema. The actor Louis Garrel, who acts in the film with actor Jean Dujardin and actress Emmanuelle Seigner, was scheduled to participate in a debate with the public about the film in Le Champo after the screening.

The promotion of the film is also being complicated as a result of these new accusations against the director. Jean Dujardin canceled his interview on TF1 on Sunday . France 5 did not broadcast an interview with Luis Garrel, who plays Captain Dreyfus on the tape. And actress Emmanuelle Seigner, wife of Roman Polanski, also canceled her participation in a France Inter program.

According to the online newspaper Mediapart , the press chiefs in charge of promoting the film asked some journalists not to ask the film team questions about the accusations of rape against the director of Chinatown , The Seed of the Devil and The Pianist .

Both Monnier, the actress who accuses Polanski of having raped her in 1975, and the French feminist group "Osez le féminisme" denounce that the filmmaker deals with the promotion of the film to clean his own public image by presenting the victim of a judicial error .

"We denounce the reversal of guilt. Roman Polanski dresses in Dreyfus' clothes , considering that he is the victim of a plot by the inquisitors who are the women, at the same time their victims, and those who try to defend them," He pointed out this French feminist group through Twitter.

But not all feminists are against the director of The officer and the spy . French film director Nadine Trintignant, known in France for her fight against violence against women, came out in defense of Polanski on Wednesday, whom she considered "a huge director," despite accusations of rape. His daughter, actress Marie Trintignant, died in 2003, after her sentimental partner, singer Bertrand Cantat, gave her a brutal beating.

"I am here to defend Roman Polanski ," Nadine Trintignant said in an interview on the BFMTV television network. Trintignant recalled that the alleged violation occurred 44 years ago and that if Roman Polanski was not called Polanski but Dupont or Durant "would leave him alone" after such a long time.

"They are always against him. There is jealousy against someone who has succeeded after being a little Polish out of the ghetto" from Warsaw, added the director, who said he is inclined "more to believe him than to a woman who has taken 44 years in denouncing him. "

Polanski, a fugitive from US justice since 1977 for the violation of Samantha Geimer when he was 13, has been accused in recent years by a dozen women of raping them on different dates. In most cases, the facts, which he denies, had prescribed when these women filed the complaint.

The last to publicly denounce the director has been Valentine Monnier, a secondary actress in the 80s, a former model and photographer. This Frenchwoman has finally decided to break her silence about her alleged violation following the premiere in France of the new Polanski film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the Venice Film Festival.

Polanski's film is titled in French "J'accuse" (I accuse), as the allegation published in 1898 by the French writer Emile Zola in favor of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish military man falsely accused of treason for anti-Semitic motives. Dreyfus was degraded and imprisoned. In 1906 it was shown that the sentence had been unfair and Dreyfus was rehabilitated. Valentine Monnier is the one who now launches his "I accuse" against the director. The Dreyfus case divided France deeply. The Polanski case also now divides the country.

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  • Feminism
  • Sexual abuse
  • movie theater
  • culture
  • France
  • Paris
  • Gender violence

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