Calls in France for boycott of latest Polanski film after new rape claim
Film director Roman Polanski was facing calls for a boycott of his new film which opened in France Wednesday, in the wake of the latest rape accusation against the controversial director.
An online campaign to boycott his historical drama based on the Dreyfus affair, “An Officer and a Spy,” was backed by former French women’s minister Laurence Rossignol.
The legendary film-maker has been under mounting pressure since a French photographer claimed on Friday that he raped her in 1975 when she was 18 after beating her “into submission” at his Swiss chalet.
Valentine Monnier said she felt impelled to speak out after Polanski compared himself to the hero of his new film, Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer wrongly persecuted as a spy by French army at the turn of the 20th century.
The 86-year-old French-Polish director has been a fugitive from US justice since admitting to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in a plea bargain to avoid a trial on more serious charges.
Via France 24
