(Paris) French actress Isild Le Besco, who spoke out against Benoît Jacquot following Judith Godrèche, announces that she has filed a complaint against the filmmaker, after having hesitated for a long time to do so, in an interview with Libération broadcast on Wednesday.
The 41-year-old actress suggested at the end of February that she was considering this legal action, before explaining a few weeks later in her book Say true (Denoël edition), that she did not feel ready to do it.
“Isild Le Besco is undertaking a courageous approach of consistency and exemplarity with the filing of this complaint,” his lawyer, Me Benjamin Chouai.
According to him, the complaint was filed with the juvenile brigade and concerns acts of rape of minors over 15 years old and rapes allegedly committed between 1998 and 2007.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Benoît Jacquot
“With this complaint, it is not so much that I attack Benoît Jacquot, but that I support the women who do it and thus expose themselves publicly. Morally, I feel obliged to do it, even if alone, I would not have done it,” declared to Release Isild Le Besco, spotted in the feature film Sade by Benoît Jacquot in 2000.
“Basically, for Benoît to fall alone, I find it unfair. Other men have damaged me, and not just in the film industry. If I file a complaint, it is because I want this system of domination, constantly renewed, to stop. […] I am not galvanizing myself to take legal action, it will be a difficult moment, but I know that I have to do it,” she continues.
Stressing that it is “very hard to put words to traumatic events”, she adds that she anticipates that “(her) complaint will undoubtedly be dismissed” and criticizes the justice system by claiming to have filed a complaint on several occasions in her life, notably in 2018 for “domestic violence”, without there being any follow-up.
Another actress, Judith Godrèche, 52, filed a complaint against Benoît Jacquot, and another director, Jacques Doillon, for sexual and physical violence which dates back to his adolescence.
Following the accusations made by Mr.me Godrèche, who had become the spearhead of the #metoo movement in France, the Paris prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation against Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, who both dispute the facts.