(Paris) The lawyers of the French writer Michel Houellebecq and his wife announced on Tuesday that they had been responsible for taking “all amicable and contentious steps, both civil and criminal”, to obtain the ban on the film Kirac 27described as porn and featuring the writer, and a trailer they believe is defamatory.
The trailer for this film, which is to be released on March 11, directed by a Dutch collective, Kirac, was released at the end of January. In particular, we see the writer, shirtless, kissing a young woman in bed.
In voice-over, the director, Stefan Ruitenbeek, recounts that Mr. Houellebecq had written to him that his honeymoon in Morocco had been canceled, while his wife had, according to him, “spent a month arranging prostitutes at the advance “.
The couple “discovered with dismay and disgust” that the trailer for Kirac 27 contained “statements implicating them, serious and false, violently undermining their dignity”, write Mare Angélique Bérès and Maïa Kantor, who defend the spouses, in a press release.
He therefore instructed his advisers to “immediately put an end to these attacks by all means” by having “withdraw this trailer from platforms and social networks throughout the world”, and by prohibiting the director and the collective “any exploitation, commercial or non-commercial, in any form, of the film […] and other images they may have of the Houellebecq spouses”.
According to Me Bérès, contacted by AFP, “pre-litigation steps have already been taken with the director and the platforms” to obtain the ban on the film, in particular if it contains the voice-over comments of the trailer.
In a letter sent to the director, of which AFP was aware, Mr. Houellebecq evokes “the explosion of violence” of the trailer, “which irremediably damages (his) private life, (his) honor but above all, what is even more serious, to (his) wife, devastated by the lies” spread about her.