Actress Adèle Haenel (right) leaving the French awards
France’s equivalent of the Oscars ? the Cesars ? was thrown into turmoil Friday after director Roman Polanski won top awards, prompting walkouts from actresses and protests outside the venue.
The 86-year-old Franco-Polish director’s film ‘An Officer & A Spy’ captured the awards for best director and best adapted screenplay, a deeply controversial choice for the French film industry in the #MeToo era.
Polanski, who was absent from the ceremony, pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in the US in 1977 but fled before sentencing. He has been a fugitive from justice ever since.
His win on Friday prompted French actress Adele Haenel, who last year said she had been sexually abused as a child by another director, to walk out, exclaiming: “Shame!”
Host of the ceremony, Florence Foresti, later posted an Instagram story with a black screen and the word: “Disgusted.” The host took several jabs at the film during the ceremony, asking the audience not to applaud when she listed its nomination.
The French feminist collective, Nous Toutes, also said in a statement that Polanski’s win was “shameful.” The Academy of the Cesars had “spat in the face of victims of pedophile acts, in the face of victims of sexist violence and, more broadly, in the face of millions of women in this country,” the group added.
As the ceremony unfolded, protesters outside clashed with police as they tried to enter the building. The demonstrators held flares and pushed metal fences towards the police, Reuters reported. It added that police used pepper spray on the protesters, who held placards reading: “No Cesar for rapist.”
–CNN