Three years ago, an actress walked out of an awards ceremony. Adèle Haenel, one of the stars of 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, left France’s César Awards in protest after it was announced that Roman Polanski had been named best director, for J’Accuse – his 2019 film about Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish military officer wrongly convicted of treason. Forty-three years earlier, Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor, before fleeing to France ahead of formal sentencing.
“Well done, paedophilia,” Haenel shouted as she left the hall. Several others followed her. “We know how this evening will unfold already,” Polanski had declared in an earlier statement, in which he also announced that he would not attend the awards ceremony because he feared a “public lynching” by feminist activists. “What place can there be in such deplorable conditions for a film about the defence of truth, the fight for justice, blind hate and anti-Semitism?” But Haenel felt that “distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims,” as she told the New York Times after the César nominations were announced, with Polanski’s J’Accuse receiving 12 – the most of any eligible film. “It means raping women isn’t that bad.”
