Paris (AFP)
"I accuse", the reconstruction of the Dreyfus affair by Roman Polanski, was released Wednesday against a background of controversy, while the director is targeted by a new charge of rape that embarrasses the French cinema.
The promotion of the film, awarded by the Grand Jury Prize in Venice, was disrupted, actors Jean Dujardin and Emmanuelle Seigner having canceled interviews, while programs recorded with Louis Garrel have not been broadcast in recent days.
Tuesday night, a few dozen feminists blocked a preview in a Parisian cinema by chanting "Polanski rapist, cinemas guilty" and brandishing placards on which was inscribed "Polanski persecutes women", calling on all cinemas to stop projecting the film and the spectators to boycott him.
"Cinemas have the right to screen this film and people have the fundamental right to see it, but we can not pretend that the film is not part of the secrecy," AFP told AFP. feminist Caroline De Haas, from the collective #NousToutes.
A hashtag #BoycottPolanski appeared on social networks, while some people hijacked the movie's posters on Wednesday, transforming the "J'accuse" into "J'abuse" or "J'acquitte".
Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol, former Minister of Family, Childhood and Women's Rights, said Wednesday morning that she "would not go see the film" and called everyone to do the same.
"I can say that it's a film that you should not go to see, because you do not have to give it to Polanski, you do not have to give up on it. to give up the sponge, "she said on France 2.
- "to dissociate the man" -
On the contrary, the director Nadine Trintignant defended Roman Polanski on BFMTV. "I find it very serious to bother him right now, where there is a rise of anti-Semitism in Europe," she said, saying that "it would tend to believe him a woman who took 44 years to think about denouncing it ".
At the premiere Tuesday night at the Champs-Elysées, in the presence of the film crew including Roman Polanski, many guests said "dissociate the man from the director".
"I come to see the work of the man, the director, I do not know if what is accused is true or not true," said AFP one of the spectators, Seny Carette, saying that actors in the film "did nothing to penalize their work".
On Friday, the daily Le Parisien published the testimony of the French photographer Valentine Monnier, who says she was "beaten up" and raped by the Franco-Polish director in 1975 at the age of eighteen in Switzerland. An accusation refuted "with the greatest firmness" by the filmmaker's lawyer.
The ARP, which brings together more than 200 filmmakers including Roman Polanski, is considering possible sanctions against its members implicated in cases of sexual violence, a decision that could affect the director.
- Controversy in Venice -
The new case Polanski, under the action of the US justice since 1977 for illegal sex with a minor, arrives on the screens at a time when the #MeToo movement has recovered vigor in France after the statements of Adele Haenel accused director Christophe Ruggia of "touching" and "harassing" when she was a teenager.
Adele Haenel, one of the most popular French actresses, was one of the few voices in the 7th Art to express her support for Valentine Monnier.
Thriller against the background of espionage, "J'accuse", tells the Dreyfus Affair, major scandal of the Third Republic which lasted twelve years (1894-1906), from the point of view of Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart, Chief of Services information.
Dujardin, excellent, plays the role of lieutenant-colonel, Emmanuelle Seigner (the wife of Polanski) his mistress and Louis Garrel Captain Dreyfus.
Awarded at the Mostra, "J'accuse" also aroused reservations, especially because Roman Polanski had said repeatedly that he saw in this case an echo to his own story, considering himself "persecuted".
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