Cesar Awards ceremony: Judith Godrèche urges French film industry to accept reality of sexual abuse

Judith Godrèche, a French actress, urged the French film industry to confront the reality of sexual assault and physical abuse during a live broadcast of the Cesar Awards event on Friday. The Cesar Awards are France's equivalent of the Oscars.  

Godrèche declared, "We can decide that men accused of rape no longer rule the (French) cinema."  

Godrèche was asked to address sexual violence during the ceremony because performers said they had been sexually abused as teenagers by directors who were decades older than them. This exposed the obscene underbelly of the nation's film industry.  

"Is it feasible for us to confront the reality?" Godrèche spoke and was greeted with a standing ovation.  

It comes as French cinema is expected to shine next month at the Oscars ceremony with Justine Triet 's courtroom drama “ Anatomy of a Fall.” 

French moviegoers know Godrèche, 51, well. She recently leveled accusations of sexual assault and rape against two film directors from her adolescent years. According to the Paris prosecutor, she formally filed a case earlier this month. 

She is claiming physical and sexual abuse throughout their six-year relationship, which began when she was fourteen, with film director Benoît Jacquot. Jacquot is a well-known French director who is 25 years her senior. 

In addition, she is claiming that she was sexually abused by Jacques Doillon, a different director, when she was just fifteen years old. She is 28 years older than Doillon. 

Doillon and Jacquot have refuted the accusations. 

Godrèche stated earlier this month on France Inter radio that she had never been drawn to Jacquot, “but I ended up with him, in his bed, and I was his child wife.” Godrèche and Jacquot met in 1986 on the set of his film “The Beggars.” 

“I was indoctrinated, it was as if I’d joined a cult,” she said. The relationship was marred by violence, confinement and control, she said. 

Hours before the start of the ceremony, French cultural minister Rachida Dati criticized the country's cinema for “collectively turning a blind eye for decades” to sexual violence. She hailed Godrèche’s courage to speak out and for sharing her traumatic experience. 

Judith Godrèche has spoken of her pain in simple terms, Dati said. "She said, I was a child. You saw everything and no one said anything,” the cultural minister said in an interview with The French Film magazine. She added: “This should be the beginning of profound soul searching for French cinema.” 

“Creative freedom is total, but we are not talking about art here, but about a crime against a child,” Dati said. “Having a sexual relationship with a child under 15, is a crime.” 

Godrèche had previously spoken about her relationship with Jacquot, without naming him, in an autobiographical television show called “Icon of French Cinema” that was released in December. 

She was among the actors who spoke out in 2017 against U.S. film producer Harvey Weinstein amid the #MeToo movement, accusing him of sexual assault when she was 24. 

Jacquot told the Le Monde newspaper that he “doesn’t feel directly concerned” by Godrèche's accusations, with whom he said he fell in love at the time. He denied any abuse of authority. 

In a statement to international news agency Agence France-Presse, Doillon said “the just cause doesn’t justify arbitrary denunciations, false accusations and lies.” 

Following Godrèche's accusations, other women decided to speak out. 

Isild Le Besco, 41, accused Jacquot of “psychological and physical violence” in a relationship with him that began when she was 16 and he was 52. She also accused Doillon of having picked someone else for a role she was supposed to get because she refused his sexual advances. 

In 2011, a 45-year-old actress named Anna Mouglalis accused Doillon of sexual abuse.  

Actor Gérard Depardieu was accused of sexual misbehavior in the past, which rocked the French film industry. 

Women's rights activists protested during the 2020 Cesar Awards event when director Roman Polanski won the best director prize despite being absent. Actor Adèle Haenel stood up and left the room, citing her accusation of being sexually assaulted by a different French director when she was just fifteen years old in the early 2000s.  

Decades after he was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977, Polanski is still wanted in the US.