PARS.- The controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski face on Tuesday -February 5- in France a judgment by defamationfor questioning the veracity of the accusations of sexual assault attributed to him by actress Charlotte Lewis.
The 90-year-old Franco-Polish director, who described these accusations as a hateful lie, will not appear at the trial before a correctional court in Paris, where he will be represented by his lawyers.
British Charlotte Lewis, 56 years old, just watch.
Accusations against Roman Polanski
The winner of three Oscars and a Palme d’Or has been accused of sexual assault and rape on several occasions throughout his career, prescribed accusations that have not prevented him from working. He has always denied them.
In May 2010, in the middle of the Cannes festival, the British performer claimed that the film director sexually assaulted her during a casting at her home in Paris in 1983, when she was 16 years old.
Lewis, who acted in the film Pirates of Polanski in 1986, did not denounce him, but testified before the US police.
Nine years later, in December 2019, the director described these accusations as a hateful lie, in an interview in the French magazine Paris Match.
“As you see, the first quality of a good liar is an excellent memory. Charlotte Lewis is always mentioned in the list of my accusers without (her) contradictions ever being pointed out,” said the director.
The filmmaker thus referred to comments attributed to the actress in an interview published in 1999 by the British tabloid News of the World. “I wanted to be his lover… I probably wanted him more than he did,” the article wrote.
Charlotte Lewis reported in 2010 that her quotes were not accurate.
“Defame, discredit, slander”
After Polanski’s interview on Paris Match, the actress filed a defamation complaint, which in France almost always ends with a trial.
The filmmaker’s lawyers deny any defamation in their statements and called the author of the article as a witness. News of the WorldStuart White.
“Defamation, discredit and slander are an integral part of the Polanski system and this is what Charlotte Lewis denounces with great courage,” her lawyer, Benjamin Chouai, told AFP.
Polanski, born in Paris in 1933, lives in Europe to escape American justice, which considers him a fugitive for more than 40 years after being convicted of having illegal sexual relations with a minor.
In France, he has maintained a very low profile since 2020 when actress Adle Haenel indignantly left the French Csar Awards ceremony, which awarded him the Best Director award for his film The officer and the spy.
This incident became one of the symbols of the fight against sexual assaults in the world of cinema, which gained strength in recent months with the accusations of several women against the actor Grard Depardieu.
The defamation trial coincides with the controversy opened by actress Judith Godrche’s accusations against directors Benot Jacquot and Jacques Doillon for rape when she was a minor.
At the end of February, the actress denounced the trafficking of girls in the seventh art, during the last Cesar awards ceremony, overshadowed by accusations of sexual violence.
FUENTE: AFP
