Roman Polanski’s new film An Officer and a Spy topped the list of nominations on Wednesday for the “French Oscars,” sparking outrage from feminists.
The controversial director has been wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl since 1978 and is persona non grata in Hollywood.
His period drama about the Dreyfus affair, which rocked France at the turn of the 20th century, is in line for 12 Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.
Photo: AFP
The head of the French film academy Alain Terzian said it “should not take moral positions” about giving awards.
But their choice was condemned by the French equality minister, feminist groups and some film critics.
“If rape was an art, give all the Cesars to Polanski,” tweeted the French women’s group, Osez le feminisme (Dare to Be Feminist).
“By celebrating a fugitive rapist and child sex criminal, we silence the victims,” it added, urging supporters to demonstrate outside the awards ceremony on Feb. 28.
Equality minister Marlene Schiappa was equally scathing.
“What message are they trying to send?” she told French radio. “Clearly the French film industry has a way to go when it comes to sexist and sexual violence,” she added.
“I don’t think they respect women and particularly victims who have spoken out.”
Culture Minister Franck Riester commented the academy was “free to make its choices but added that he would continue to defend “creative freedom with the same determination with which I daily combat all forms of sexist and sexual violence.”
“It is high time for cinema professionals to distance themselves clearly from the Cesar. I dare hope the vast majority of them and Franck Riester will refuse to attend the ceremony,” retorted Alice Coffin, of feminist group La Barbe.
CINEMAS PICKETED
British film critic Caspar Salmon was also biting in his criticism.
“The Cesar awards are literally inviting an actor who was a victim of sexual assault by a director when she was a child (Adele Haenel), and a director who sexually abused a child (Roman Polanski), to be in the same room together for a big celebration of film.”
Haenel, who was nominated for best actress for her performance in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, touched a nerve last year by telling how she was sexually harassed from the age of 12 on her first film. French director Christophe Ruggia was charged with sexual assault on a minor earlier this month.
Polanski, 86, won both best director and the critics’ prize at the Venice film festival in August for An Officer and a Spy, which has been a big hit at the French box office despite a wave of protests.
Some screenings had to be cancelled after feminist protesters invaded or blockaded cinemas.
The publicity campaign for the film was also halted after French photographer Valentine Monnier claimed that she had also been raped by the director in 1975.
Monnier, an 18-year-old model and actress at the time, said Polanski tried to give her a pill as he beat her “into submission” at his Swiss chalet.
Polanski “absolutely denied” assaulting Monnier, pouring scorn on her story.
UNHEALTHY TOLERANCE
The director — who sparked uproar at Venice by comparing his hounding by the media to the anti-Semitic persecution Dreyfus suffered — blamed the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein for his woes.
He said Weinstein had tried to brand him a “child rapist” to stop him winning an Oscar in 2003 for The Pianist.
Terzian strongly defended the French academy’s right to honor Polanski’s new film.
“Unless I am wrong, 1.5 million French people have gone to see his film. Go ask them,” he shot back when asked if they academy should be celebrating Polanski.
Les Miserables, a tough drama set in the poor and restive poor suburbs of Paris — which is also in the running for a best foreign language Oscar — picked up 11 Cesar nominations, just behind Polanski’s film.
Ladj Ly’s film is also battling against Polanski and By the Grace of God, Francois Ozon’s film about clerical child sex abuse, in the best film and best director categories.
La Belle Epoque also got 11 nominations, one ahead of Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
The Polanski controversy quickly became one of the top trending topics on French social media, with many comparing the tolerance the director enjoys from the film industry to that granted until recently to the disgraced veteran writer Gabriel Matzneff, who had written for decades about his sexual adventures with adolescents.
Matzneff, who is being investigated by French police, said Wednesday that he regretted his sex tourism trips to Asia, claiming that at the time “no one ever said it was a crime.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located