C’EastIt is one of the most significant hearings of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into violence in the world of cinema. On November 7, actress Sara Forestier testified about violence suffered during her career, and described « the talent grinding machine »in the words of rapporteur (MoDem) Erwan Balanant.
Guest of our show “À l’air libre”, the 38-year-old actress, revealed in The Dodge (2003), by Abdellatif Kechiche, relates the difficulty of the film industry in dealing with the issue of violence, “focus” on women who report violence, and the bad ones “reputations” which would be made to them in return: « They may be looking for Mother Teresa, but there is no perfect victim. »
She also discusses the impact of the words of actress Adèle Haenel in 2019 – a case whose trial will be held on December 9 and 10 at the Paris Criminal Court.
Sara Forestier reveals that she herself testified in support of a complainant in the proceedings against Jacques Doillon, accused of sexual violence by several women (the director disputes the facts and filed a defamation complaint against the actress Judith Godrèche): “I filmed with Jacques Doillon [dans le film Mes séances de lutte (2013) – ndlr]a complainant filed a complaint against him, I testified in this context to say things that I had seen and that Jacques Doillon had done on this shoot, on this girl. »
On our set, the actress also returns to her testimony regarding the actor Nicolas Duvauchelle, whom she accuses of having slapped her on the set of the film Good man in 2017.
According to our information, she filed a complaint in March 2023 and a preliminary investigation is underway at the Paris prosecutor's office. She announces that she also intends to file a defamation complaint against the actor, who described her, on November 8, on the social network “mythomaniac”and who assured – contrary to her statements in the legal file – that it was she who would have “slapped”.
Asked by Mediapart for a video interview, Nicolas Duvauchelle, who is presumed innocent, replied that he did not wish ” not [s’]express more at this stage ». He told us that he had no “never hit Sara Forestier” and that the actress's remarks towards him were “absolutely false”.
For his part, the producer of the film, Denis Pineau-Valencienne, let us know that there had been no “neither slap nor physical violence” according to the five written testimonies that he had collected at the time from “team members present on site”.
The director, Marion Vernoux, also told us that to her knowledge, no slap had been given by either party. “What could have happened to cause them to come to such verbal extremes? I approach to try to calm them down. They continue to spit nonsense in their faces. No doubt a few hateful spits land on the other's face. In terms of physical violence, I can only testify to this »she wrote in the testimony she sent to Mediapart. The filmmaker explains that, at the time of the events, she refused to support Sara Forestier's handrail at the police station, because she did not want to do “false testimony”even to save her film, she says.
After the recording of this show on Tuesday, November 26, Sara Forestier wanted to react to Marion Vernoux's response: “I made this show because in cinema and society, we have to break the chains of complicity. There is no such thing as complicit silence, it's complicit “shut up”, complicit blaming, minimization of the aggressors' actions. The complicity must stop, so that the aggressors find themselves weakened, helpless, and less strong in their domination. I believe in it. »
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A program prepared and presented by Mathieu Magnaudeix and Marine Turchi, journalist in the Mediapart investigations department.
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