César 2024 : Judith Godrèche’s commitments against sexual violence in the film Industry
Friday, February 23, 2024. Actress Judith Godrèche takes the stage at the Olympia, in front of the « big family of cinema » gathered for the 49th César Awards ceremony. Announced a few days earlier in the media, her speech sounded like the shockwave everyone was expecting. The actress named her own pains, as well as those of too many women and young girls who are victims of male violence and the silence of the industry, which, in the name of the magic of the 7th art, prefers to turn a blind eye. « Eye to eye », Judith Godrèche reminded that there was nothing wonderful about the abusive behavior of some or the silence of all the others. Fairies do not exist. « Little girls are punks », she says in front of the same industry that saw her grow up. « It’s complicated to stand before all of you tonight, you are so many, but in the end I guess it had to happen » she confides. « It’s a strange moment for us, isn’t it? A ghost from the Americas who comes to kick the armored door, who would have thought ? »
A blow that is not without recalling the one struck by Adèle Haenel and Céline Sciamma four years earlier. Remember, on the evening of Friday, February 28, 2020, when the two women left the ceremony shouting « Shame! It’s a shame ! » following Roman Polanski’s victory in the best director category. The filmmaker accused of rape of minors had, three years earlier, had to decline the title of president of the ceremony in the face of feminist activists’ demands. That same winter evening, only men were on the César’s winners list.
While the investigation into Gérard Depardieu’s obscene behavior is in full swing, at least publicly, a video of Benoît Jacquot from the documentary « The Tricks of Desire: The Forbidden » (2011) has recently resurfaced on social media. The filmmaker describes the relationship he had with a teenager in the late 1980s. Faced with the impunity of his words, Judith Godrèche courageously spoke out. She talks about the hold the French director had on her when she was a minor: she was 14, he was 40. « The little girl in me can no longer keep this name silent », Judith Godrèche declared on Instagram on January 6, 2024. Until then anonymously reported, the filmmaker is named for the first time. However, he is never mentioned in the actress’s series, « Icon of French Cinema », released a few weeks earlier on Arte. Fearing that the subject would « disappear behind a name », Judith Godrèche opted for autofiction: « I use this artistic form to undo. To do. To transmit. And I didn’t want it to be swept under the rug », she explained on her networks.
Just AKO.
