From “sacred monster to monster pure and simple”, Anouk Grinberg denounces the silence of the milieu which allowed these actions

Anouk Grinberg’s exceptional testimony on Franceinfo: the actress explains why she broke her silence when she was advised to keep quiet.

“The corporatism of this profession should not prevent the truth from emerging. Depardieu was one of the sacred monsters of cinema and everyone allowed him to become a monster, period.”. On December 11, 2023 on France Inter, the actress Anouk Grinberg testified after the broadcast of an edifying episode of the France 2 magazine, Further investigation, about Gerard Depardieu.

The Depardieu affair has fractured French cinema. A column in support of the actor, denouncing a “lynching”is decried. Then a counter-tribune denounces the remarks of Emmanuel Macron interviewed on the subject, for whom “Gérard Depardieu is an immense actor who makes France proud”.

To date, around twenty women have sued the 75-year-old actor. Five have filed complaints, including the young actress Charlotte Arnould, for rape and sexual assault. The latest complaint concerns events during the filming of the movie The Green Shutters in 2021, in which Anouk Grinberg plays. She, who has known Gérard Depardieu for a long time, explains why she broke the silence, speaking out more often, even though those around her had advised her to keep quiet. “What is certain, she confides, It was that my silence was really weighing on me, I was beginning to find it unbearable, for me and also for Charlotte, and for other women, who did not dare to file a complaint.”

Seeing the actor’s excesses directed at a colleague, yes, that happened to him. “I didn’t laugh, but I kept quiet, like everyone else. And this silence, which creates the omerta of cinema, had become too ugly, too incomprehensible.”

“I believe that those who remain silent are accomplices to crimes.”

Anouk Grinberg, actress

to franceinfo

Since she spoke out against the actor, the actress regrets the lack of support from the stars because she “knows” that, if these personalities were not subjected to attacks by Gérard Depardieu, they “were witnesses”. Based on a letter addressed to her, she relates the case of a technician who says she saw her colleague being assaulted in public by the actor on a shoot: “When you go through this kind of violence, which is more public – because you hear, it happened in front of everyone and no one said anything, no one ever defended her – when you go through that, you are never the same again.”

Coming out of silence, assures the actress, is “to be on the side of life that needs to repair itself.” And if Judith Godrèche told her that testifying was, for her, the beginning of hell, Anouk Grinberg, she, “don’t feel that”she feels respected and has never worked so hard: “I think it’s a fantasy to say that actresses who could speak will no longer find work.”she says.

Gérard Depardieu will be tried in October for sexual violence against two women during a film shoot. He risks a second trial: on August 14, the Paris prosecutor’s office requested his appearance before the departmental criminal court for rape and sexual assault of actress Charlotte Arnould, 28. Two other complaints for acts dating back to 2007 and 2014 were dismissed due to the statute of limitations.